Posted on 01/20/2006 9:39:09 PM PST by ferri
Scientists confirmed today that the Stardust sample return capsule that parachuted to Earth last weekend achieved a mission goal of catching comet and interstellar dust particles.
It might also have brought back traces of water tossed off from a comet.
"This exceeded all of our grandest expectations," said Donald Brownlee, the mission's principal investigator from the University of Washington. "We were totally overwhelmed," he said, noting that "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds" of particle tracks have been brought back.
Stardust scientists and curation experts cracked open the Stardust sample return canister Tuesday in a cleanroom facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas.
That day was a "magic moment," Brownlee said. "We were the first people in the history of the planet to see comet dust in hand," he reported today in a press briefing held at the center.
Stardust's encounter and cometary dust sample collection at comet Wild 2 occurred Jan. 2, 2004, with the spacecraft flying by the comet at roughly 149 miles (240 kilometers) distance.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
I hope they dont accidentally drop the beaker of this crap anywhere near a cemetary.....
Zombies
if they do you know who we can blame it on. lol
LOL!! Good point!
Zombies eat brains so Homer Simpson would be safe.
As would John Kerry.
Who served in Vietnam, BTW.
That's right...just long enough to order the sampler platter of medals on his way out.
On the serious side for a moment...
Doesn't the Universe just blow your mind? Where is it? What's at its' boundaries?
I can't accept, "It just is - Get over it."
And what about this 'Big Bang' thing? Whoa.
we can just send them to Ted's. one chomp of that pickled mess in that big old head should take care of them. drunk zombies...hmmmmmmm...
have you signed up to help look at the dust? they will be starting in the spring sometime. i signed up a few days ago. they said it would take forever for them to look at it all so they need help. if you find anything your name will be on any scientific paper that is written about it. lol
it will all be done over the computer somehow. lol imagine if people got their hands on it??? look ebay!
and who's going to help me look at my own dust. I have alot too, you know!
In fact...I'm...looking at...some...right now...on my key.....boar...d...
I'll say. Time to solve those riddles.
Check please!
well. he's a goner! lol
too bad we couldn't have made a trade, a bunch of dust for that bonehead. lol
Please note that the mind blowing universe as we know it only came into view in the 1920's, with Mount Palomar and Edwin Hubble.
Also note that the universe, as understood by modern cosmology, has no boundaries, just as the surface of the earth has no boundaries. Still, this hardly negates your question, "where is it?" which proposes the question of context.
I would only remark that the account in Genesis, Chapter 1, is based on a very naive acceptance of pre-existing space and time, and even matter. God is pictured as an agent within this context, and modern cosmology is far more "mind blowing" in its reach to explain the dynamics and origin of the space-time arena, and the existence and nature of the matter within it.
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