Comet Dust Lands on Earth |
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Written by spacetravel.org
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Sunday, 15 January 2006 20:17 |
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On 15 January, NASAs Stardust spacecraft dropped a capsule containing comet dust from a comet called Wild 2 into the Earths atmosphere. It landed in the Utah, U.S. desert at 1012 GMT.
Stardust was launched in February 1999 and reached Wild 2, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, in January 2004. It flew within 236 kilometres of the comet and extended a tennis-racket-shaped collecter to trap dust particles in Aerogel. Aerogel is a transparent solid so light that it almost floats in air. Scientists believe that it captured more than 2000 particles wider than 15 micrometres.
Wild 2 spent billions of years in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune. Comets like Wild 2, which have not been altered by heat and geological processes like the inner planets of the Solar System, are thought to provide pure samples of the gas and dust that formed the Solar System. Chunks of the sample from Wild 2 will soon be sent to labs around the world. By analysing the ingredients of the dust, scientists will gain a clearer of picture of what the Solar System was like when it formed 4.6 billion years ago.
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