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Space Science

NASA Overjoyed at Catch From Stardust 227

Posted by Zonk from the yay-for-dust! dept.
mknewman wrote to mention a New York Times report that the Stardust project has exceeded NASA scientist's expectations. From the article: "While they had expected mostly microscopic samples, the researchers said, a surprising number of the particles were large enough to be seen with the naked eye ... The cargo in the Stardust's sample container, which was opened Tuesday, 'was an ancient cosmic treasure from the very edge of the solar system,' Dr. Brownlee said. Scientists believe that these particles are the pristine remains of the material that formed the planets and other bodies some 4.6 billion years ago."
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NASA Overjoyed at Catch From Stardust More

NASA Overjoyed at Catch From Stardust

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  • Sponsoring (Score:5, Funny)

    by chriss ( 26574 ) * <chriss@memomo.net> on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:06PM (#14523000) Homepage

    The cigarette brand West sponsored the russian cosmonaut training center in the 90s.

    When the Russians delivered the supply module for the ISS, the rocket carrying the module had a "Pizza hut" logo on the side.

    When MIR dropped into the ocean, Taco Bell placed a 40*40 feet large floating target in the supposed drop zone and claimed free Taco Bell for all US citizens if parts of MIR hit the target.

    Maybe Hoover could sponsor NASA expeditions.

  • space trash (Score:3, Funny)

    by dirvish ( 574948 ) <dirvish@foundne[ ]com ['ws.' in gap]> on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:09PM (#14523012) Homepage Journal
    Did they pick up any of their space trash [slashdot.org] while they were out there?

  • We are all made of stars (Score:5, Interesting)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:12PM (#14523039) Homepage Journal
    It's excellent that we'll have a chance to study this material close up. Metorites are valuable, but this Stardust material is even more precious, because it will give us a look at unformed planetary material that was not likely ever part of a planetary body. Some of the meteorites we've studied may have been part of a smashed planet, or mal-formed planet, but comet material could have very interesting molecular structures I predict.

  • quarantine? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ChipMonk ( 711367 )
    What steps has NASA taken to isolate the collected sample before analysis?

  • 4.6 billion? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:14PM (#14523054) Homepage
    ...some 4.6 billion years ago.

    Of course they really mean about 6000 years ago.

    • Re:4.6 billion? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by johndierks ( 784521 )

      Of course they really mean about 6000 years ago.

      If you like being WRONG!

    • New religious discussion site.

      God Exists: 9% support [debatepoint.com]

      -metric

  • But it will all be for not... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Quaoar ( 614366 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:14PM (#14523056)
    ...when the lead scientist sneezes on it.
  • This is great news! I love seeing space success stories out in the public eye. Perhaps such missions will be an inspiration to the next generation of potential explorers. There's just something cool about space...

  • There goes interstellar travel (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Joiseybill ( 788712 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:23PM (#14523132)
    If a 14-inch wide collector accumulated hundreds of humanly-visible samples in 195 days of travel - including at least one that caused a trace "large enough to put a small finger through", then any hope for high-speed space travel is really going to need excellent shielding. Statistically, it would seem very likely to encounter objects with sufficient mass to cause damage at high relative speeds. It might be interesting to see what a comparable flight through "clear space", and not near a comet would yield.
    • The voyager spacecraft have been pretty successful ya?

    • Re:There goes interstellar travel (Score:5, Informative)

      by hunterx11 ( 778171 ) <hunterx11.gmail@com> on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:30PM (#14523192) Homepage Journal
      It is already known there that are enough stray particles in space that a craft moving at relativistic speeds would need a good deal of shielding against them. Somewhat counterintuitively, deep space has a higher density of particles than inside the solar system, since the pressure of the solar wind actually keeps particles from deep space at bay.

      • Re:There goes interstellar travel (Score:5, Informative)

        by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @07:30PM (#14523536) Homepage Journal
        It is already known there that are enough stray particles in space that a craft moving at relativistic speeds would need a good deal of shielding against them

        True, but this spacecraft was sent close to a comet. This environment, like the rings of saturn, is a well known hazardous environment. Normal deep space, as you would find during a cruise to mars or venus is totally empty by comparison.

      • If that's true, then when the Sun runs out of juice and us, humans, have to find new means to make a living, and generate enough electricity in a dark world without a Sun to keep our computers screens lit, at least we have stuff to fish for in deep space. I mean after we ate up all of Jupiter and the other planets, nuclear converted all hydrogen/silicon/oxygen into Fe 56 and Nickel, and we need new sources of energy to live on, at least we can sail off in all kinds of directions and feed off this space dust

    • Re:There goes interstellar travel (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cnettel ( 836611 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:35PM (#14523229)
      Actually, I think we should know these from the probes. Compare with the Pioneer effect and the overall trajectory calculations for the probes to the outer planets. Also observe the minimal number of failures during actual travel (but rather during takeoff/entering orbit/landing).

    • Bah. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by soupdevil ( 587476 )
      They were TRYING to collect samples. They flew it through the wake of a comet.

      Don't judge the safety of space by a comet's wake, just like you shouldn't judge the calmness of the water while in the wake of a speedboat.
    • I'm not saying that it isn't a problem, but I'm not sure that this is indicative of how bad the space junk problem really is.

      TFA says that the gel is "99.8% air", so a hole the size of a small human finger might "only" leave a dent in the side of a pressurized spacecraft.

      Also remember, the spacecraft did complete its mission successfully, even though at least part of it passed through the tail of a comet, intending to get hit by particles.

      • Re:There goes interstellar travel (Score:4, Informative)

        by Gogo Dodo ( 129808 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @07:16PM (#14523459)
        "Space junk" is stuff left over in Earth orbit from stuff we've put up there. Stardust didn't collect "space junk" particles, just cometary particles. The collector was only deployed when it went through the comet's coma. During the trip to the comet and back, the collector was stowed.
        • From TFA: "On its journey, the Stardust also spent 195 days collecting particles flowing through the solar system from stars far out in space. Scientists said there appeared to be hundreds of samples of these particles."
    • Ahemmm.... A little sanity check is in order here. The trace "large enough to put a small finger through" was in aerogel, a material so thin it is 99.8% empty space.

  • Go Nasa (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ardeocalidus ( 947463 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:29PM (#14523182)
    NASA really struck a cord with this one. Hopefully this success will relaunch (no pun intended) interest in the space program.

    NASA used the newer type of AeroGel to capture the dust particles. For those who don't know, AeroGel is an ultra-low density solid. The NASA AeroGel is an Alumina gel comprised of 99.8% air. The type that NASA used was Nickel-alumina, and they laced it with gadolinium and terbium so that space particles would cause the impact sight to glow under the correct conditions. (Some great photos of the foggy stuft at: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/aerogel.html [nasa.gov])

    Apparently, NASA is considering allowing civilians to search for space particulates through the web, scowering over hundreds of thousands of enlarged photographs. Its expected that NASA will announce plans for the program soon.

    Interesting links:
    http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/webcam.html [nasa.gov] - NASA Webcam
    http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature= 1019 [nasa.gov] - Latest NASA News
    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/multime dia/jsc2006e00886.html [nasa.gov] - When The Capsule First Returned
    http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/stardust-multimedia.c fm [nasa.gov] - Podcasts and Videos

    • Re:Go Nasa (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ardeocalidus ( 947463 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:43PM (#14523287)
      Update: The link to participate (soon) is http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.html [berkeley.edu]

      It will be March 1st, 2006 before the first image is available for searching, but NASA seems confident that enough users will be into is and that they'll meet an Oct 1st, 2006 deadline.

      You can pre-register here: http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/prereg.html [berkeley.edu]

    • Re:Go Nasa (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 )
      As a side note, for those wondering what else makes AeroGel so friggin cool...read some of the captions for the pictures in the link the parent provided. I forget the science behind it, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but basically these things are near perfect insulators. Not only that, but since they are made up of 99.8% air, they are basically immune to heat. And I remember someone once saying something to the extent of if you had a room covered in the stuff, and lit a single candle in the
      • I'm sorry...I know its against the rules to bitch about modding...but how the hell is this overrated? Its relevant, and explains properties about the substance featured in the story that people might not have gathered from just reading the story. This is multipurpose material, and people should know that.

  • visible by human eye? (Score:5, Informative)

    by phiber9 ( 943697 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:33PM (#14523208) Homepage
    ok. those are the large samples... if you want to help nasa (or nsa) compute the stardust microscope data (or echelon data) you can do that soon on Stardust@Home [berkeley.edu]

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by uglylaughingman ( 890927 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:33PM (#14523212)

    A massive jello-like object was reported in downtown Houston today, reportedly devouring eveything in it's path and growing exponentially. When asked for comment, scientists at Nasa's Johnson Space Center had this to say:

    "Hey, doesn't that look like that little booger-looking thing Johnson said he found in the Stardust Capsule?"

  • of star stuff.

    Too bad BHA [wikipedia.org] isn't around to see this.

  • Who you jivin' with this cosmic debris?

    (leave my nose alone, please...)
  • The spacecraft flew with a 14-inch-wide collector that resembled a tennis racket and was filled with aerogel, a silicon material composed of 99.8 percent air.

    As I recall, space is a pretty good vacuum. Why doesn't the air get sucked out of the gel, especially if the gel is exposed to the vacuum of space and even more so if it is periodically being hit by particles?

    Ok, maybe there wouldn't be one big "whooosh", but seven years is a long exposure.

    Any ideas?

  • Over joyed? Could this be a Dave Chappelle skit? (Score:5, Funny)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:54PM (#14523350)
    Nasa engineer: Hey anyone see the space dust?
    Tyrone Biggums: Space dust? *sniffs* Uh... I don't know what you are talking about.
  • I know, its somewhat OT, but when will we start seeing this wonderful aerogel in civilian products?
    • Aerogel is actually not that useful for very much. It is an excellent thermal insulator, but is very fragile and prone to becoming powder if exposed to repeaded shock. *examines his small aerogel sample* Most of it is powder now, in fact - the worst kind, powdered silica.
  • This mission is just one more example of why I feel manned missions are unnecessary. Thinking of sending people to a comet to catch particles is laughable, yet people clapped when Bush announced his "vision" [nasa.gov] to return to the Moon and put men are Mars.

    With the success of Stardust, Spirit, Opportunity, and other missions [nasa.gov], NASA and JPL are clearly demonstrating that robots are aptly suited for productive space research. Rather than invest in the huge infrastructure required to support our frailty, we should

    • Manned planetary missions should be delayed until technology advances enough to make them a lot easier. Rushing them makes them expensive and risky. They need to be done eventually, because sooner or later there's going to be another all-earth catastrophe.
    • I am tempted to say "because it is fun".

      But I will say it is because it inspires people. It inspires the explorers in us. We, humans, tend to explore our environment, It was a valuable skill for our ancestors as it is valuable now. We are all curious.

      Of course, space travel is somewhat between "damn hard" and "barely doable" and humans are also quite fragile. Putting people on other planets is going to be very complicated.

      The second good reason is that bad things do happen. Given a very long timeframe, real
    • Manned missions are necessary so that we get practical everyday means of and experience in sustaining life in a self-contained-bubble, if you will, so that we can send up a few such rainforest-glass-bubbles to outer space, that function in a closed system, as an insurance policy against humans going nuts down here, and exterminating themselves in a final nuclear apocalypse. At least some of these bubble-ships could hide out in the asteroid fields, or even land back on a devastated Terra, or even Terra would

  • Stardust and Genesis (Score:3, Interesting)

    by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @07:31PM (#14523543) Journal

    Stardust was an superb mission considering the nice samples and clear images of Wild2 (almost an afterthought). The related mission Genesis [nasa.gov] has been out of the news after its hard landing, but apparently many of the samples are in good shape [nasa.gov], too.

    • Shouldn't they be worried about destabilization of the protomatter samples, though?

      • It has been quite a while since the crash landing of the sample capsule. I have seen absolutely no intermediate results, or how compromised the samples might be. My understanding is that many isotope ratios of the Sun's photosphere preserve those of the pre-solar nebula. Genesis is supposed to measure these. I found this [caltech.edu] at Caltech that highlights one of the isotope problems being investigated.

  • Melting issues? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gorimek ( 61128 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @07:54PM (#14523651) Homepage
    Aren't comet's supposed to consist mostly of frozen water and gasses? Wouldn't most of that melt when exposed to earth temperatures?

    I know they handle the sample in a very clean room, but shouldn't it also be very cold?

    I've looked for mention of this in any of the articles, but haven't seen anything. So I'm probably misunderstanding something.

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