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Crashed Spacecraft Yields Data on Solar Wind

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the best-of-a-bad-situation dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "After the Genesis mission spent 27 months in space gathering tiny samples from different types of solar wind, Hollywood stunt pilots swooped in with a helicopter to catch the falling capsule when it returned to earth. Unfortunately the spacecraft's parachute did not open, and the spacecraft ploughed a hole into the desert. Now scientists are starting to recover data from the salvageable pieces of Genesis. Nature Magazine reports that an analysis of isotopes of neon and argon shows that the elements of main interest to the researchers have the same isotopic signature in the solar wind as in the Sun itself. Because dirt contains relatively little neon and argon, the current Science study wasn't affected too much by contamination and the the team remains hopeful that they will be able to get results on oxygen and nitrogen isotopes from the mission."

4 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. "Murphy's Law", corrected and correctly applied by v1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I found it interesting that the article describes how Murphy's Law was not as general as most of us know it, stating more specifically that things that can be installed backwards eventually will be installed backwards, and that this is precisely what caused the parachutes to fail to deploy.

    Also can't say that I knew Murphy was a "rocket scientist", literally. How ironic. You'd think NASA would have learned from him by now?

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    1. Re:"Murphy's Law", corrected and correctly applied by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also can't say that I knew Murphy was a "rocket scientist", literally. How ironic. You'd think NASA would have learned from him by now?

      Only a fool believes that Murphy can be circumvented - in the long run he always wins.
  2. Re:And so it begins by moosesocks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure.... however, this probably has a higher chance of reproducing and ruining the planet...

    --
    -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
  3. Re:Brilliant! by lexarius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why did they even bother to launch the probe? Because they weren't planning to smash it into the ground, possibly contaminating the sample? It did crash, though, and with all the money they spent on it, they're working diligently to get what they can out of it.