Hot Rocks from Comet Wild 2

March 14, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Scientists are finding surprises from analyzing tiny particles of comet dust collected by the Stardust spacecraft and returned to Earth 8 weeks ago. They had expected mostly “primitive” particles that had condensed under cool conditions in the solar nebula and been preserved in the deep freeze of space. However, some of the comet dust is made of minerals that can only be formed at high temperatures — either close to the Sun or perhaps in other planetary systems that existed before the solar system formed. NAI scientist Don Browlee reports that “In the coldest part of the solar system, we’ve found samples that have formed at extremely high temperatures.” Henry Bortman filed this story for Astrobiology Magazine from the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston.

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