20060102
Around 0100 on 15 January, NASA’s Stardust space probe is expected to streak across the night sky to its final landing in the Utah desert. On board is the collected space dust of the comet Wild 2, which the probe successfully intercepted on 4 January 2004.
This will be NASA’s second attempt to retrieve items collected in space by a probe. In 2004, the Genesis solar wind collector smacked into the same Utah desert at over 100 miles per hour, significantly damaging the probe and its payload.
Speaking of smacking, any time a space probe returns from space, the notion of the notion of Michael Crichton’s book and the resulting movie Andromeda Strain come to mind. Sometimes we just do not know what we might bring home, but it cannot help but be exciting.
DLH
