Catching Falling Stardust
Explanation:
This carrot shaped track is actually little more than 5 hundredths
of an inch long.
It is the trail of a meteroid
through aerogel
exposed to space by the shuttle launched
EURECA (European Recoverable Carrier) spacecraft.
The meteoroid itself, about a thousandth of an inch in diameter,
is visible where it came to rest, just
beyond the tip of the carrot (far right).
Chemical analyses of
interplanetary dust particles similar
to this one suggest that some of them may be
bits of comets and
represent samples of
material from the early stages
of the formation of the Solar System.
NASA's Stardust mission, planned for launch
in 1999, will attempt to directly collect
dust from the
tail of a comet and
return it to Earth --
the first non-
lunar sample return mission
ever!
In addition to peering into
the chemistry and history of the solar system,
the composition of cometary dust
has important implications
for the possibility of
past life on Mars.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
