Скачать или смотреть The Stardust Sample Return Mission

Presented by Scott Sandford, NASA Ames Research Center
The NASA Discovery-class Stardust comet sample return mission collected samples from the coma of Comet 81P/Wild 2 and returned them to Earth for study in 2006. The samples were collected at hypervelocities using low-density aerogel as the spacecraft did a flyby of the comet’s nucleus. The talk begins with an overview of the mission that covers (1) the mission design, (2) the spacecraft, and (3) the spacecraft’s encounter with Comet/81P Wild 2 and its subsequent return to Earth. This will be followed by a discussion of many of the principal scientific discoveries that resulted from both the comet flyby and the study of the returned samples in terrestrial laboratories — discoveries that will continue to grow as the returned samples continue to be studied in the future.