Team Stardust, NASA’s first dedicated sample return mission to a comet, passed a huge milestone today by successfully navigating through the particle and gas-laden coma around comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt-2”). During the hazardous traverse, the spacecraft flew within 240 kilometers (149 miles) of the comet, catching samples of comet particles and scoring detailed pictures of Wild 2’s pockmarked surface.
“Things couldn’t have worked better in a fairy tale,” said Tom Duxbury, Stardust project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
“These images are better than we had hoped for in our wildest dreams,” said Ray Newburn of JPL, a co-investigator for Stardust. “They will help us better understand the mechanisms that drive conditions on comets.”
