Member Article

Stardust Capsule Returns To Earth

A space dust capsule has safely returned to Earth, to the delight of NASA scientists. The capsule, named ‘Stardust’, collected comet and interstellar dust during its seven-year journey though the Solar System with a special gel. Scientists believe the space dust will shed light on the origins of the Solar System.

Donald Brownlee, Stardust principal investigator from the University of Washington, Seattle said: “The collection of cometary particles has exceeded our expectations. “We were absolutely thrilled to see thousands of impacts on the aerogel.” The capsule travelled 2.8 billion miles in its seven-year trip.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .