NASA Says It Collected The Stuff We're All Made Of

The Stardust probe has done what it was designed to do -- a fitting tribute to any aircraft of spaceship. It went out to meet the comet Wild 2, made a hair-raising near pass at almost 14,000 mph. Operating more than 242 million miles from Earth, Stardust came within 149 miles of Wild 2 (pronounced Vilt 2), snapping photos like a mad tourist and scooping up tiny particles of what could be the original cake mix used to form the universe.

"We have successfully collected samples from a comet and we're bringing them home," said Don Brownlee, of the University of Washington, the mission's main scientist.

Stardust is the first of three cometary missions -- the other two are slated for launch later this year. It will be only the third robotic mission to retrieve samples from another cosmic body and bring them home. The first was the Soviet Luna 24 mission to the moon in 1976. The second is the Genesis spacecraft returns in September. It went out looking for solar particles to capture, in hopes of shedding light (no pun intended) on the origins of our sun.

Stardust will pass by Earth two years from now, dropping off its canister of comet dust.

There were a few tense moments as Stardust approached Wild 2. As the comet-catcher snapped image after image (72 in all) during its brief encounter with Wild 2, scientists spotted five jets of gas emanating from the nucleus. Stardust flew through two of them. Of course, by the time they were spotted, given the distance over which the probe's transmissions had to travel to reach Earth, it was old news.

"I'm glad we didn't know those were there. We would have been terrified," Brownlee said.

First looks at the photos (only one had been released as ANN went to publication) thrilled scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (CA). "These images are better than we had hoped for in our wildest dreams," Ray Newburn, JPL investigator for Stardust, said. "They will help us understand the mechanisms that drive conditions on comets."

FMI: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov