- Jul 16, 2001
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"This exceeded all of our grandest expectations," Donald Brownlee, a University of Washington-based researcher and the principal Stardust investigator, told a news conference.
The team was still giddy from the smooth landing of the Stardust capsule in the moon-lit Utah desert, but that turned out to be just the beginning.
When the sample canister inside the capsule was opened, scientists could see with naked eyes small black rocks and other particles that had been trapped in the probe's gel-filled collection device.
"We were totally overwhelmed by the ability to actually see this so quickly and so straight-forwardly," Brownlee said.
The samples were trapped in a substance called aerogel, which although it has the same ingredients as a glass window is 99.9 percent air and has the lowest density of any solid substance.
The Stardust spacecraft lifted off seven years ago and aimed for a close encounter with Comet Wild-2, a relative newcomer to the comparatively warmer region of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
"This exceeded all of our grandest expectations," Donald Brownlee, a University of Washington-based researcher and the principal Stardust investigator, told a news conference.
The team was still giddy from the smooth landing of the Stardust capsule in the moon-lit Utah desert, but that turned out to be just the beginning.
When the sample canister inside the capsule was opened, scientists could see with naked eyes small black rocks and other particles that had been trapped in the probe's gel-filled collection device.
"We were totally overwhelmed by the ability to actually see this so quickly and so straight-forwardly," Brownlee said.
The samples were trapped in a substance called aerogel, which although it has the same ingredients as a glass window is 99.9 percent air and has the lowest density of any solid substance.
The Stardust spacecraft lifted off seven years ago and aimed for a close encounter with Comet Wild-2, a relative newcomer to the comparatively warmer region of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
The material, not the star dust 
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