Materials formed in different times and places in space mixed "a whole lot" during the solar system's formation, according to an international team of scientists who studied comet particles captured by NASA's Stardust spacecraft in January 2004.
About 170 scientists studied bits of material caught by the Stardust spacecraft during its encounter with comet Wild 2. The scientists' findings appear in seven reports about the mission in the Dec. 15, 2006, issue of the journal Science. Stardust delivered the first pristine, solid samples from outside the Earth-moon system when a capsule containing the comet materials parachuted into Utah in January 2006.
A panel of three Stardust scientists will present additional findings during a news conference Thursday, Dec. 14, at 5 p.m. EST (2 p.m. PST) at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco in the Moscone Center South, Room 232 (747 Howard Street, between 3rd and 4th Streets). The panelists include Stardust principal investigator Donald Brownlee, a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, and lead author of an overview technical paper; Sandford; and Mike Zolensky of NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, who is lead author of a study about the mineralogy of the captured comet particles.
Brownlee estimates that as much as 10 percent of the material in comets came from the inner solar system. "That's a real surprise because the common expectation was that comets would be made of interstellar dust and ice," Brownlee observed.
The Stardust spacecraft was launched on Feb. 7, 1999, from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., aboard a Delta II rocket. The NASA probe flew through comet dust and captured specks of it in a very light, low-density substance called aerogel. The capsule – small enough to hug – landed in the Utah Test and Training Range, southwest of Salt Lake City, on Jan. 15, 2006. During the capsule's high-speed reentry into Earth's atmosphere, NASA studied the capsule's heat shield material, which yielded information that could be useful for heat shield development for future missions to the moon and beyond.
After the preliminary examinations were complete, all the samples were transferred to NASA's curatorial office at NASA Johnson, where they will be made available to the general scientific community for more detailed study.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) has selected Volvo Aero to participate in the early development phase of the nozzles for the J-2X engine, destined for NASA’s new manned launcher ARES I, the successor of the current Space Shuttle.
PWR has chosen Volvo Aero for its extensive experience in development and manufacturing of rocket nozzles. The contract may develop into Volvo Aero’s most significant US space endeavor, and it is the first time Volvo Aero participates in the development of a manned system.
Layers on Mars are yielding history lessons revealed by instruments flying overhead and rolling across the surface.
Some of the first radar and imaging results from NASA's newest Mars spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, show details in layers of ice-rich deposits near the poles. Observed variations in the layers' thickness and composition will yield information about recent climate cycles on the red planet.