The Stardust spacecraft collected thousands of particles from comet 81P/Wild 2 and returned them to Earth for laboratory study. The preliminary examination of these samples shows that the nonvolatile portion of the comet is an unequilibrated assortment of materials that have both presolar and solar system origin. The comet contains an abundance of silicate grains that are much larger than predictions of interstellar grain models, and many of these are high-temperature minerals that appear to have formed in the inner regions of the solar nebula. Their presence in a comet proves that the formation of the solar system included mixing on the grandest scales.
Type
research article
Web of Science ID
WOS:000242833600041
Authors
Brownlee, Don
•
Tsou, Peter
•
Aleon, Jerome
•
Alexander, Conel M. O'D.
•
Araki, Tohru
•
Bajt, Sasa
•
Baratta, Giuseppe A.
•
Bastien, Ron
•
Bland, Phil
•
Bleuet, Pierre
Publication date
2006
Published in
Volume
314
Start page
1711
End page
1716
Peer reviewed
REVIEWED
Available on Infoscience
September 29, 2011
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