01.27.2006
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| Looking down on Aerogel Tile 115 - impact craters from the larger particles are circled. |
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Dr. Peter Tsou, Stardust Deputy Principal Investigator, reports that since the Sample Canister was delivered to the Stardust cleanroom at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) on January 17th, the Preliminary Examination Team (PET) along with JSC Curatorial staff have been making good progress toward processing the returned samples. Dr. Tsou says, "Everything has proceeded smoothly, in fact, we are ahead of our planned schedule on several fronts.
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| Spectacular image of a comet particle that penetrated the aluminum
foil holding the aerogel block, leaving an impact crater in the foil
and ejecta in the aerogel. |
The Principal Investigator, Deputy Principal Investigator and several subteam leads have worked from 8:00 am until near midnight for the last two days. We have removed many aerogel fragments and found many particles in them. We removed 7 pieces of aluminum foil and found very many small craters in them." The team has also sliced one of the removed aerogel cells with the harmonic saw.
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