NASA Overjoyed at Catch From Stardust

mknewman wrote to mention a New York Times report that the Stardust project has exceeded NASA scientist's expectations. From the article: "While they had expected mostly microscopic samples, the researchers said, a surprising number of the particles were large enough to be seen with the naked eye ... The cargo in the Stardust's sample container, which was opened Tuesday, 'was an ancient cosmic treasure from the very edge of the solar system,' Dr. Brownlee said. Scientists believe that these particles are the pristine remains of the material that formed the planets and other bodies some 4.6 billion years ago."

Comments

Go Nasa

[Ardeocalidus]

NASA really struck a cord with this one. Hopefully this success will relaunch (no pun intended) interest in the space program.

NASA used the newer type of AeroGel to capture the dust particles. For those who don't know, AeroGel is an ultra-low density solid. The NASA AeroGel is an Alumina gel comprised of 99.8% air. The type that NASA used was Nickel-alumina, and they laced it with gadolinium and terbium so that space particles would cause the impact sight to glow under the correct conditions. (Some great photos of the foggy stuft at: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/aerogel.html)

Apparently, NASA is considering allowing civilians to search for space particulates through the web, scowering over hundreds of thousands of enlarged photographs. Its expected that NASA will announce plans for the program soon.

Interesting links:
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/webcam.html - NASA Webcam
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature= 1019 - Latest NASA News
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/multime dia/jsc2006e00886.html - When The Capsule First Returned
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/stardust-multimedia.c fm - Podcasts and Videos

Re:There goes interstellar travel

[hunterx11]

It is already known there that are enough stray particles in space that a craft moving at relativistic speeds would need a good deal of shielding against them. Somewhat counterintuitively, deep space has a higher density of particles than inside the solar system, since the pressure of the solar wind actually keeps particles from deep space at bay.

visible by human eye?

[phiber9]

ok. those are the large samples... if you want to help nasa (or nsa) compute the stardust microscope data (or echelon data) you can do that soon on Stardust@Home

Re:There goes interstellar travel

[MichaelSmith]

It is already known there that are enough stray particles in space that a craft moving at relativistic speeds would need a good deal of shielding against them

True, but this spacecraft was sent close to a comet. This environment, like the rings of saturn, is a well known hazardous environment. Normal deep space, as you would find during a cruise to mars or venus is totally empty by comparison.