Whatever it is, it's going to be interesting ...

Published online: 13 February 2006
A comet's tale.
"Scientists are just beginning to examine the pieces of a comet brought
back to Earth by NASA's Stardust mission."
...
"After fiddling around to improve the picture slightly, Kearsley starts
a more intensive scan of the grain that will reveal its chemical
make-up. As the analysis comes through, there are cries of surprise.
"Whatever it is, it's weird," says Bland.
"The team agonize over the decision to make another scan to get more
accurate results, but Kearsley is worried about "frying" the sample.
"These grains have had a long journey and rather a lot of money spent
on them," he cautions.
"They can see that just a few minutes exposure to high-energy electrons
has changed the structure of some of the epoxy surrounding the grain,
so they finally decide that the initial results are so astonishing that
they should contact Mike Zolensky at Johnson Space Center immediately
to tell him about the find, and wait for further instructions. Zolensky
is in charge of the preliminary analysis of the samples, and is
collating all the information from these first tests."
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060213/full/060213-2.html

Bob Clark

c.f.,

Space Sciences
What will Stardust find?
Posted by Robert Clark on 1/25/2006 3:56:55 PM
http://www.habitablezone.com/space/messages/412249.html