NASA's Stardust spacecraft successfully landed in the Utah desert Sunday, after a seven-year mission to collect comet samples.

Stardust traveled nearly three billion miles during its spaceflight to the Comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt 2”), where it grabbed cometary samples and tucked them away inside a honeycombed collector filled with aerogel.

The spacecraft also collected samples of the interstellar dust that drifts through the solar system.

But after a successful journey, it’s time to come home.

Stardust ejected its sample return container early Sunday morning, sending the stubby capsule screaming through the Earth’s atmosphere toward the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR).

As expected, the capsule unfurled its parachute and touched down on Earth at 5:10 a.m. EST (1010 GMT) on Jan. 15, 2006.

Recovery crews photographed the sample return container (seen above) in the pre-dawn hours before transporting it to the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground for safekeeping.

• Stardust Capsule: Safe Landing, Now The Science
• Mission Completed: Stardust Capsule Lands in Utah
• Full Circle: NASA’s Stardust Probe Returns Home with Comet Samples

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA