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Stardust Encounters Wild 2 (artist's conception)

This is an artist's concept of the Stardust spacecraft beginning its flight through gas and dust around comet Wild 2. The white area represents the comet. The collection grid is the tennis-racket-shaped object extending out from the back of the spacecraft.

 

Stardust was launched on February 7, 1999 and flew by asteroid AnneFrank on November 2, 2002. The probe reached its target, comet Wild 2, on January 2, 2004 and returned samples from the comet to Earth on January 15, 2006. NASA scientists discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by the Stardust spacecraft. Although the primary mission was over in 2006, Stardust was repurposed as the NExT mission - flying by Comet Tempel 1 on February 14, 2011.

 

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Credit: NASA/JPL

Image Number: PIA03183

Date: September 1, 2009

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Uploaded on January 2, 2024
Taken on September 1, 2009