World Report: January 27, 2006 Vol. 11 Iss. 16
- This Issue:
- Table of Contents
- Cover Story
- Cover Story - Spanish Version
- Mini-Lesson
- Comprehension Quiz
- Teacher's Guide and Worksheets
Catch a Comet by Its Tail . . .
The space capsule Stardust blazed through the skies at 30,000 miles per hour before it landed, slowed by parachutes, in a Utah desert. Stardust brought home the first material collected from a comet.
Comets are chunks of ice, rock and dust that are billions of years old. Studying them could pro-vide clues to how the solar system formed. Two years ago, the craft flew to within 150 miles of Comet 81P/Wild 2 and stuck out a tennis-racket-like contraption to catch tiny grains of material being blown off the surface of the comet. The microscopic particles were trapped in an airy goo called aerogel. Scientists believe that a million of these dust particles may have been captured by the craft.
Why is this so exciting? Comets are like cosmic time capsules. They contain material that has been in the deep freeze since the Sun and the planets formed more than 4.5 billion years ago.
Volunteers may be able to help scientists unlock the secrets of space dust. People can peer at images of the aerogel at Stardust@home to search for tiny particles. Once reseachers know where to look, they will carefully extract the dust and analyze it.
Another reason to pitch in? People who find grains of space dust get to name them!
