Crashed Spacecraft Yields Data on Solar Wind

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."

Comments

Re:Argon

[Dishevel]

From what I remember about the original experiment. The colector plates that were exposed to the solar wind used layers to trap the solar wind particles. They were driven deep into the samples by the speed of the solar wind. Argon while present in the earths atmosphere is not as told by the researchers in the soil. Exposer to the air itself wont much contaminate the samples as there is no way to DRIVE the gas particles into the sample medium.