Life's Secrets From A Comet's Tail 62
An anonymous reader wrote to mention a Guardian report on the return trip of the Stardust mission, which has snatched material from the tail of a passing comet. From the article: "Scientists are particularly interested in comets because they believe they are rubble left over from making the solar system, which later played a profound role in the development of Earth. They probably delivered most of the water for Earth's oceans and bombarded our planet with complex organic compounds that could have been crucial to the evolution of life here. For these reasons, researchers have sought a source of comet molecules and designed Stardust to provide it." Wow, this thing has been out there a long time. When I Googled to make sure this wasn't a dupe, I ran across CmdrTaco's post about the Stardust probe entering the comet's tail - almost exactly two years ago.
Re:Duping (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Duping (Score:2)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/
Give it time. (Score:1, Funny)
Yet.
Re:Duping (Score:2)
Stardust to Return January 15 [slashdot.org] On December 23rd, 2005 with 143 comments
accessdeniednsp writes "Seven years ago, the Stardust probe was sent to intercept Comet Wild 2, gather dust particles, and return to Earth. Stardust is...
Dust Samples Returning to Earth at 28,860 mph [slashdot.org] On December 22nd, 2005 with 48 comments
DjBenBen writes "After a 2.88 billion mile round-trip journey, NASA's Stardust mission is nearing Earth with comet and interstellar dust particles tha
Re:Duping (Score:1)
Boo! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Boo! (Score:1, Offtopic)
An American Tail [imdb.com]
btw- yes I searched google for snatch+tail and no, none of the first 10 results were porn-related.
Thought I'd get that out of the way
I dunno... there has to be some joy in watching... (Score:2)
There are a lot of things about comets which it's fun watching armchair philosophers and myopic my-theory-fits-everything scientists trying to explain.
For a few interesting examples:
Not often that I reply to an AC, but... (Score:2)
OMG DUPE! (Score:2, Funny)
This comment, or the article? (Score:2)
Re:No! (Score:2)
Re:Hand of God or Comet Dust? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Hand of God or Comet Dust? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hand of God or Comet Dust? (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't that what science is all about: regardless of your religious beliefs? See Newton and other scientists who considered their quest for knowledge as learning about God. Which in my case, has a lot more meaning than the myth in the Bible and other scriptures.
Re:Hand of God or Comet Dust? (Score:1)
Okay yeah it sounds nasty but then aga
Re: Hand of God or Comet Dust? (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, that's your hand, not God's.
what ever happened... (Score:2)
Re:what ever happened... (Score:5, Informative)
As is to be expected in this situation, the probe wasn't flying backwards when it needed to trigger the chutes and subsequently it hit the desert with a rather satisfying thud.
This mission to the comet's tail is very, very similar with an almost identical 'landing' planned. Lets hope the same guy didn't fit components on both.
Re:what ever happened... (Score:2, Offtopic)
The genesis project was a program designed to grant life where there is none.
It was doomed by the use of unstable protomatter.
Zonk's New Year's Resolution.. (Score:5, Funny)
a. No more dupes.
b. Use Google more.
c. More commentary in story submissions.
no, sorry the answer was CowboyNeal.
Re:Zonk's New Year's Resolution.. (Score:1, Funny)
d. No more dupes.
Re: Zonk's New Year's Resolution.. (Score:3, Funny)
"Dupes" is such an ugly word. Try to think of them as "stories about stories carried on Slashdot".
Offtopic: Damn slashdotters (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Offtopic: Damn slashdotters (Score:1)
However, what the moderators seem to miss completely, is all the "Ooooh! Ooooh! I'm obsessive enough and anal enough to point out that a message is a dupe!" Not sure why - maybe it's some sort of
Use /. to Search for Dupes, not Google (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot actually has a search function built-in! There is a little search box down in the lower left of the webpage that anyone can use. It is especially usefull when searching for dupes. Check out this example:
http://science.slashdot.org/search.pl?query=stardu st [slashdot.org]
You can see that this very story was posted twice already on the 22nd, not to mention all of the older references.
Dupe? (from Dec 22) (Score:1)
Stardust to Return January 15 [slashdot.org]
Ooops, I already violated my New Year Resolution not to be a total bastard!!
Sorry.
w00t! (Score:2, Funny)
Wrong date? (Score:5, Funny)
Zonk, it's January the first, not April! Guess someone's still under the influence from last night's celebrations...
Re:Wrong date? (Score:2)
Re:Organic, eh? (Score:2)
A long time? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A long time? (Score:2)
News flash........ (Score:1, Redundant)
In other news speculation continues that
Re: (Score:1)
Re:News flash........ (Score:2)
And since when did writing skill have anything to do with
Check out the site (Score:3, Informative)
Stardust's mission has gone relatively smoothly- I've been checking in every few months because I can't help but be impressed by scale of this experiment. And this time, they ever thought to put a parachute in the return capsule, unlike that other probe which captured solar wind particles, then smashed into the desert floor when the stunt 'copters didn't make the catch. (The sun must've been in their eyes...) The comet pass-through two years ago might have been overshadowed by the Mars Rover(s) story- one of 'em landed just around the same time as Stardust's Wild 2 encounter.
Fix Slashdot's search engine (Score:1)
problem with cometary orign of earth's water (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:problem with cometary orign of earth's water (Score:2)
Re:problem with cometary orign of earth's water (Score:1)
"Do I look fat in this crust?" -Earth
How many dupes do you want? (Score:1)
All snarky [reference.com] (provided for my new years resolution to stop grammar nazis. Yes I realize that just begs for more flaming) comments aside I thought this was a