On Feb 7, 1999, NASA launched the Stardust mission to intercept comet Wild-2 and capture some of it's dust and return it to earth. It arrived last weekend after traveling 2.9 billion miles and scientists are thrilled. This is the first solid material brought back from space since Apollo 17 returned moon rocks in 1972.
They didn't know until they examined the capsule if it had succeeded in collecting anything. Apparently it got thousands of samples, most microscopic, but at least one almost the size of your little finger.
The comet is believed to be 4.5 billion years old, making it about the same age as the solar system. Analyzing the composition of the particles will give clues as to what particles existed to form the sun and planets.
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