Touchdown!

Johnson Space Center, Texas – January 18, 2006 – Stardust’s comet particles arrive on earth. A capsule carrying interstellar dust landed on earth Sunday, and should provide scientists with insight into how the solar system was formed. On Jan. 14, NASA's Stardust spacecraft released the capsule, which had collected dust from the tail of a comet called Wild-2 two years ago. Early on Jan. 15, the capsule safely touched down in the Utah Test and Training Ridge. Stardust traveled 2.88 billion miles during its seven-year space adventure. "We traveled almost 3 billion miles in space," principal investigator Don Brownlee told CNN from nearby Dugway Proving Grounds. "We visited a comet, grabbed a piece of it, and it landed here this morning. It's an incredible thrill." "The Stardust project has delivered to the international science community material that has been unaltered since the formation of our solar system," said Tom Duxbury, Stardust project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The capsule and its cargo arrived today at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, for analysis in the coming weeks, months and years. Scientists have begun work to open the canister and assess its contents; to see scientists work on the canister, click here. Before analysis can begin, however, the material, expected to be about a thimbleful, must be separated from a substance called aerogel. Aerogel is a strong, lightweight silica glass that is 99.8 percent air and looks like frozen smoke. It is used to help trap the particles. "We pushed about every frontier you can think of," Duxbury told CNN. "We went half way to Jupiter on solar cells. Coming back into Earth faster than anything has ever done before. So many, many things that we did in this little project." Stardust at a glance The Stardust spacecraft was launched on Feb. 7, 1999, from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida, aboard a Delta II rocket. Its probe collected interstellar dust during an encounter with Comet Wild-2 on January 2004, after nearly four years in space. Wild-2 is thought to come from the Kuiper Belt, a band of debris that orbits the sun beyond Neptune. Its 100-pound capsule entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, traveling almost 29,000 mph, and crossed over Oregon and Nevada before landing in the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range, on Jan. 15, 2006, at 2:10 a.m. Pacific Time. Source: NASA For More Information NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Stardust Webcam

Containers for Stardust’s Sample Return Canister and associated hardware arrive at Ellington Field, near NASA’s Johnson Space Center. NASA’s Stardust sample return capsule successfully landed at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range at 2:10 a.m. Pacific time. The capsule contains cometary and interstellar samples gathered by the Stardust spacecraft. This NASA TV image shows the Stardust sample return capsule in a temporary clean room at the Michael Army Air Field in Utah. Earlier, the capsule successfully landed at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range at 2:10 a.m. Pacific time (3:10 a.m. Mountain time). It contains cometary and interstellar samples gathered by the Stardust spacecraft. Stardust Capsule Return as seen from NASA's DC-8 Airborne Laboratory All photos courtesy of NASA.

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