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news release
For the attention of: news/science editors
PR4783
3 January 2004
Close encounter of a cometary Kind
STARDUST flies through Comet Wild 2
NASA’s space probe, STARDUST, successfully flew through Comet Wild 2 on January the
2nd collecting interstellar particles and dust on its way. One of the instruments on board, the
Dust Flux Monitor Instrument (DFMI) has been built by a team which include space scientists
from the Open University.
Since its launch in February 1999, STARDUST has covered 3.2 billion km (2.3 billion miles).
It is the first mission designed to bring samples back from a known comet. The study of
comets provides a window into the past as they are the best preserved raw materials in the
Solar System. The cometary and interstellar dust samples collected will help provide
answers to fundamental questions about the origins of the solar system.
Professor Tony McDonnell and Dr Simon Green from the Open University’s Planetary and
Space Science Research Institute (PSSRI) are currently at the mission command centre, the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where they are beginning to receive data from their
instrument.
Dr Simon Green said: “Early indications show that the encounter with Comet Wild 2 has
been successful. The sensors on the DFMI have detected a significant number of impacts.
Some of these, as expected, have penetrated the spacecraft dust shield – hopefully this
should result in a good number of samples being returned to Earth.”
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Professor Tony McDonnell added, “The whole process seems to have gone to plan and we
look forward to receiving more data over the next day or so. The telemetry received so far
includes an image from the onboard camera, which shows a roughly spherical comet
nucleus that was pockmarked with large "sinkholes". Four or five jets of material could be
seen bursting from the object.”
“Stardust could provide a new window into the distant past” said Dr Green. “Comets are
made of ice and are very cold and have been very cold since they were formed. That
protects the material of which they were made from any process of heating, so they haven't
been changed since they were formed, right at the beginning of the formation of the Solar
System. So we can have almost a little time capsule of what things were like 4.5 billion years
ago."
UK scientists, including a team from the Open University, are also involved with the
European Space Agency’s Rosetta Mission which will follow and land on Comet ChuryumovGerasimenko. This mission is due to be launched on 26th February 2004.
Notes to editors and media contact details:

Louis de la Foret – OU Media Relations Office
Tel: 01908 653256. Email: L.Delaforet@open.ac.uk
Mobile: 0777 1810099

Gill Ormrod – PPARC Press Office
Tel: 01793 442012. Email: gill.ormrod@pparc.ac.uk
Mobile: 0781 8013509.

Professor Tony McDonnell – Open University STARDUST team/NASA CoInvestigator (at JPL, California)
Tel: +44 (0) 1227 761352. Email: Tony@unispacekent.co.uk
Mobile: +44 (0) 7771 514007.
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
Dr Simon Green - Open University STARDUST team (at JPL from 27th Dec)
Tel: +44 (0) 1908 659601. Email: s.f.green@open.ac.uk
Contact number between 6-8 am GMT and 2-4 pm GMT – 00 1 626 446 6422
And between 5pm – 1 am GMT on 00 1 818 393 7822

Dr Neil McBride - Open University STARDUST team (at JPL from 27th Dec)
Tel: +44 (0) 1908 659600 Email: n.m.mcbride@open.ac.uk

Professor John Zarnecki – Open University (in UK)
Tel: +44 (0) 01227 831067. Mobile: 07789 900099
Email: J.C.Zarnecki@open.ac.uk
Images
Images of STARDUST flying through Comet Wild 2 and the unusual aerogel material that will
capture the interstellar dust can be found on the PPARC website at
www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/images.asp Further images, including those taken from the onboard
camera can be found on the NASA website – address below.
Websites
Open University Planetary and Space Science Research Institute
http://pssri.open.ac.uk/
NASA
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov
Background information
1. The DFMI, part funded by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
(PPARC) records the distribution and sizes of particles on its journey through the
centre, or coma, of the comet. This will help tell us more about comets and the
evolution of our own solar system and, critical for STARDUST, its survival in the close
fly-by of the comet.
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2. The distance between Earth and Comet Wild 2 was 390 million kilometres (242 million
miles) at the time of the encounter.
3. Wild-2 is pronounced Vilt-2. The comet is named after the Swiss discoverer.
4. The spacecraft was protected from debris and rocks by a number of shields in order
to guard its solar panels and body. In preparation for this journey the craft was pelted
with rocks and debris travelling at six times the speed of a bullet.
5. The cometary particles were captured on a tennis racket like grid which contains a
substance called aerogel – the lightest solid in the Universe! This is a porous material
that allows the particles to become embedded with minimum damage. This means
that on their return to Earth they will be as near as possible to their original state.
6. Once the samples are captured a clam like shell closes around them. The capsule
then returns to Earth in January 2006 where it will land at the US Air Force Utah Test
and Training Range. Once collected, the samples will be taken to the planetary
material curatorial facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, Houston, where they will
be carefully stored and examined.
7. The Open University team hope to be involved in analysing the samples that return to
Earth in January 2006.
8. STARDUST, is part of NASA’s Discovery Programme of low cost, highly focused
science missions, was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics and Operations, Denver,
Colorado, and is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA’s Office of
Space Science, Washington D.C.