Much of the science of this mission hasn't been done yet. |
One major concern was having it break open. |
Our history is written at the submicron level, in these interstellar grains. |
Our mission is called Stardust, in part because we believe some of the particles in the comet will, in fact, be older than the sun. |
People all over world will be able to analyze them down to a single atomic scale. |
REMARKABLY enough, we have found fire and ice. |
Remarkably enough, we have found fire and ice. We have found samples in the coldest part of the solar system. |
Some scientific secrets will come out almost immediately. |
That's the big question: Is there a difference? |
The biggest impacts were big enough to put your little finger in. |
The capsule's return is probably the simplest of all the things Stardust has done and has the least risk. Nonetheless, it has to work. |
The fundamental reason for this mission is that we are collecting what we believe are the best preserved samples of the formation of our solar system and they are preserved because they formed these comet bodies beyond the major planets out beyond Neptune. |
The imaging was a bonus, but boy, what a bonus. |
The primary purpose of the Stardust mission was to collect comet dust, the most basic material of the solar system, and bring it back to Earth for study. |
The real exciting thing will be opening the canister and seeing what the comet delivered to us. |