Mission Cup 2021: Stardust

NASA’s Stardust mission collected dust from comet Wild 2 and returned it to Earth successfully in January 2006. Its secondary mission was to collect samples of cosmic dust on the journey, on the back side of the cometary dust collector. It also … Continue reading →

Mission Cup 2021

This gallery contains 1 photo.

What is your favourite space mission? We’re hosting #MissionCup2021 over on our @EarthSolarSystm Twitter account from Thursday 4th Feb. Join us to vote for your favourites from midday each day, and help choose which mission will be crowned champion. T-8 … Continue reading →

“Manchester, this is Houston. Do you copy?” Part Two

This gallery contains 3 photos.

As mentioned in a previous blog post (“Manchester this is Houston. Do you copy?”) Sam and I spent 10 weeks of our summer at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) in Houston Texas partaking in a graduate internship program. However, … Continue reading →

Comets: Atmospheres, water, and life?

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Comets may have brought the water that gave rise to the oceans, the atmosphere, and potentially life to Earth. Continue reading →

Stardust workshop at Timber Cove, California (Feb. 4 to 9, 2011)

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The focus of this meeting was to discuss recent results from the Stardust mission which was the first space mission ever to collect and return cometary material (from comet 81P/Wild 2) and contemporary interstellar dust in 2006. Material collection was … Continue reading →