What makes comet wild 2 unique

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Thank you! Wilson January 22, A version of this story appeared in Volume 85, Issue 4. The Stardust spacecraft followed this orbit as it caught up with comet Wild 2, then returned a capsule filled with comet particles to Earth. Treasure Chest. The capsule sent back to Earth by the Stardust spacecraft came to rest on the Utah desert floor.

Heavenly Body. Credit: NASA. Happy Trails. Particles of dust from comet Wild 2 embedded themselves in the Stardust spacecraft's aerogel collectors, forming these tracks.

Image: Treasure Chest The capsule came to rest on the Utah desert floor. You might also like Physical Chemistry.

Comets Questioned As Water Source. A hot start for some comets? Share X. To send an e-mail to multiple recipients, separate e-mail addresses with a comma, semicolon, or both. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Donald E. Brownlee of the University of Washington and his collaborators have since analyzed 72 photographs taken during the 20, kilometer-per-hour flyby and their findings seem to contradict one popular theory for the makeup of comets.

Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Support science journalism. Previous work by Frank Shu, then at the University of California in Berkeley, US, and colleagues suggests a possible mechanism for local dust transport. Intense electrical currents would have been produced in the early solar system where magnetic fields from its rotating dusty disc interacted with those of the infant Sun. After being heated close to the Sun, it could fall back into the disc in the outer solar system, he says.

Future tests of the isotopes in the minerals will determine whether the grains came from our solar system or from another star entirely.