Comet

[mmcirvin]

The Stardust sample-return probe took an unexpectedly good picture of the nucleus of Comet Wild 2, including five jets of material geysering off of the surface. With luck, the spacecraft will bring back some dust from its encounter in 2006.

Comments

[plorkwort.livejournal.com]

Yay! I've been rooting for this spaceship to do well ever since I had to do a demonstration about its aerogel the summer I was working at the Museum of Science.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Same here, but for a different reason. Dr. Don Brownlee, one of the project heads, was pitching the STARDUST project during the quarter I was in his class at UW, Astro 321: Planets (which covered everything from dust up, really). This meant that he missed a few lectures, so we had Pinky Nelson (a Columbia astronaut) give a couple lectures. Brownlee's focus has always been planetary and interplanetary, but nowadays he's into astrobiology, a relatively new astronomy fad which does a better job at serious speculation about ET life than Drake ever managed.

Brownlee has also written a couple of interesting books with another UW prof, Dr. Peter Ward; I recommend Rare Earth which suggests that bacteria life may be common in the universe, but complex life might be more rare than every before believed. Not too anthropicist, and interesting reading.