The Stardust spacecraft has successfully completed its first round of interstellar dust collection. On Monday, May 1, Stardust lowered its "mitt" of lightweight aerogel used to capture intact small particles of dust believed to originate from outside our solar system. The collector was successfully stowed into its cruise position.

Since February 22 the spacecraft had its collector extended in the first of two planned efforts to capture particles of interstellar dust. A second interstellar dust collection phase is planned for mid-2002.

Stardust will use a similar technique to capture dust from Comet Wild-2 when it flies by the comet in January 2004. The dust will be stored on the spacecraft and returned to Earth, where a sample return container will parachute to a landing in Utah in 2006.

Stardust launched in February 1999 and is breaking new ground with this dust collection effort. "It's the first time anyone has attempted to catch anything like this and bring it home," said project manager Kenneth Atkins. "After all the design, building, testing, and now the flying of this spacecraft, the moment of truth for the collector is here."

Because the dust is traveling at a high velocity relative to the spacecraft -- up to 25 kilometers a second (56,000 mph) -- mission planners had to take great care to stop the particles in a relatively short space without vaporizing them. The solution was aerogel: a lightweight but strong solid just a few times as dense as air. The aerogel in Stardust's collector is able to stop the particles and dissipate their high kinetic energy without destroying the dust.

Other instruments on Stardust have also been analyzing dust that had hit the spacecraft, and turned up interesting results. Last month German scientists discovered the existence of "tar-like" organic molecules in the dust, far larger than anything ever seen in the past in space. The existence of such particles could have implications for astrobiology, in particular the formation of life on the early Earth or other worlds.

For complete information on the mission, please see the Stardust home page.

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