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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."
If a 14-inch wide collector accumulated hundreds of humanly-visible samples in 195 days of travel - including at least one that caused a trace "large enough to put a small finger through", then any hope for high-speed space travel is really going to need excellent shielding. Statistically, it would seem very likely to encounter objects with sufficient mass to cause damage at high relative speeds. It might be interesting to see what a comparable flight through "clear space", and not near a comet would yield.
They washed their hands with a wetnap leftover from lunch at KFC?
Really, do you think that someone whos entire livework to this point has culmanated with the landing and retrival of this material is going to let the sample be contaminated? (Or contaminate the Earth)
I expect comments like this on Digg, not here.
Almost any organism not actually evolving with current Earth life would probably be killed, rather than killing. And, if it was in fact some pathogen that has left the Earth previously, it might be a bit more dangerous, but on the other hand, we could risk finding those in almost any geological survey.
The spacecraft flew with a 14-inch-wide collector that resembled a tennis racket and was filled with aerogel, a silicon material composed of 99.8 percent air.
As I recall, space is a pretty good vacuum. Why doesn't the air get sucked out of the gel, especially if the gel is exposed to the vacuum of space and even more so if it is periodically being hit by particles?
Ok, maybe there wouldn't be one big "whooosh", but seven years is a long exposure.
Any ideas?
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They were TRYING to collect samples. They flew it through the wake of a comet.
Don't judge the safety of space by a comet's wake, just like you shouldn't judge the calmness of the water while in the wake of a speedboat.
Not Hoover, Dyson.
Maybe, just maybe you could see that by learning more about what we came from, we might actually learn things? You know, it's part of that whole "science" thing that those ivory tower intellectuals keep talking about. I know that you may not like anything that doesn't give you a pretty picture or that doesn't beat those damn commies, but you know what, NASA is one of the few governmental agencies that does it's job well (aside from a few mishaps here and there, but then, that's common in government). I find it aggrivating how people want to keep cutting the budget for NASA, yet it gets less in a year than the War in Iraq gets in 3 months. Comon, people, NASA is what gets you your satalite TV, your cell phone service, your XM and Sirius radio, if it wants to actually go out and do some science beyond that, is it really that bad to toss it a few billion dollars to research our origins or explore the planets around us, what's so bad?
I suspect people wondered the same thing about Antony van Leeuwenhoek. Why would anyone care about things too small to see? What a collosal waste of time. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/leeuwenhoek.h tml
NASA != ESA.
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Of course they really mean about 6000 years ago.
If you like being WRONG!Aren't comet's supposed to consist mostly of frozen water and gasses? Wouldn't most of that melt when exposed to earth temperatures?
I know they handle the sample in a very clean room, but shouldn't it also be very cold?
I've looked for mention of this in any of the articles, but haven't seen anything. So I'm probably misunderstanding something.
Even better than proof of intelligent design would be an actual fingerprint from the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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The problem is we're not talking about sending a generation to Mars; just a few lucky people. It's not that we shouldn't go to Mars, I just think that the investment it would require for us to do it in the next 50 years would be better spent teaching robots how to drive jeeps and bring rocks back to Earth. Our time will come as we discover better ways to move flesh around the solar system.
Still, it's a good question. In the aerogel, they have Oxygen? What if the particles are reactive? Moreover, what kind of structures have they destroyed by opening it in Texas, near sea level? I mean, these things haven't ever been exposed to that much pressure. It probably has an effect on them.