HOUSTON, Texas - In a nationwhere obsessive collectors bestow value on everything from bean bag animals to baseballcards to anything the marketing department from Disney can pump out, there isone authoritative set of collectibles that is truly one of a kind and out ofthis world.
Theassortment contains bits of comet, samples of solar wind and particles ofinterstellar dust. Also, toss in loads of meteorites and the collected works ofApollo moonwalkers that lugged back to Earth lunar rock and dirt.
Allthis and more are under the care of the Astromaterials Acquisition and CurationOffice at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). They curate the space agency'scurrent and future holdings of samples from out there.
Thatwas the case when NASA's Genesis sample container made a high-speed nosediveinto a Utah landing zone back in 2004--minus a parachute.
"Allthe samples came back to Earth. They just busted up and got dirty," saidCarlton Allen, Astromaterials Curator and Manager of the AstromaterialsAcquisition and Curation Office here at JSC.
However,it has been a painstaking job of extracting Utah mud, salt-filled water and shatteredspacecraft from whiffs of solar wind. "We're continuing to clean, analyze anddistribute samples. We're getting samples out and people are doing good sciencewith them," he told SPACE.com. "You can learn what the Sun was tellingus."
OnJanuary 15 of this year, after more than 7 years and billions of miles oftravel through space, NASA's Stardust spacecraft deposited its return capsuleon Earth loaded with prized cargo: pristine samples of comet particles capturedduring the spacecraft's encounter with Wild 2 in January 2004. This timeparachute hardware worked as billed.
"WithStardust, life's a whole lot easier," Allen said. "Less than a year aftermission return, we have high-quality science coming out of the science team."
Stardustsamples are now available to the worldwide science community at large onrequest and following a normal peer review process. "Everybody has a shot atStardust samples," Allen added.
Furthermore,thanks to Stardust@home -- http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.php-- the public can volunteer to look for minuscule particles of interstellardust also bagged by Stardust. The intent is to locate the "best hits" in theStardust collector to be carefully removed next year for study at JSC and otherinstitutions.
JSC'sAllen said that the need for Apollo lunar samples is on the upswing.
NASA'sback to the Moon campaign has meant a 50 percent increase in the number ofrequests for lunar rocks and dust returned by Apollo moonwalkers.
"Weunderstand mostly how to do that. We've been dealing with lunar rocks for30-plus years," Allen explained. "We know how to take care of rocks."
Haulingback a suite of samples from Mars by automated means has long been on NASA'sred planet plans.
"Marsis a different kind of place," Allen noted. "There are planetary protectionconsiderations with any kind of Mars sample."
Astudy is now underway--led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory--to investigate a roboticMars sample return mission--making use of Ares boosters that are part of NASA'sConstellation program, Allen said.
Inaddition, NASA's Mars Scout program has received sample return proposals, Allennoted.
"Wewould have to sterilize the entire spacecraft...something we did for the Vikinglanders...and not impossible to do," Allen explained.
"Theidea that there is liquid that close to the surface is going to make us rethinkour ideas about the thermal history of Mars," Allen said. "The thought thatthere are places on Mars you can go where you can sample liquid, or the remainsof a liquid flow that is absolutely modern, is very, very exciting."
Spottingbright material spilling out onto the surface of Mars, perhaps salts of somesort, is a "very unusual phenomenon," Allen observed.
"Weknow about asteroid material from our meteorite collection," Allen said. "Weknow about fine surface material from an airless body...from what we've done onlunar samples. And there's nothing like having two flight missions--Genesis andStardust--under our belts to give us the confidence to support others."
"Iceis something that we haven't dealt with before," Allen said. That materialmight be found in the lunar exploration program--loitering in sunlight shycraters--and is certainly part of a comet's makeup.
"Onceyou're out past the asteroid belt - there's ice everywhere," Allen pointed out.Sampling the icy face of Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's Enceladus would notbe easy.
"Oneof the things underway here over the next year is learning how to do curationin sub-freezing temperatures. We've never had to do that," Allen remarked.
"That'sone of the frontier areas that we want to work," Allen said.
- Image Gallery: Comets
- Image Gallery: Welcome Back: Stardust Returns Home
- Image Gallery: Deep Impact Collides With Tempel 1
- Genesis Special Report: Bringing Solar Wind Down to Earth
- Space Missions: Chasing Comets and Asteroids
- Full Circle: NASA's Stardust Probe Returns Home with Comet Samples
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