Photo Gallery A Look at Comet Dust
Stardust spent just minutes flying through the tail of the Wild 2 comet in 2004. But it collected thousands of particles. Here, microscopic tracks of the particles as they were captured.
A researcher holding an aerogel cube used to capture the dust particles in the Stardust spacecraft.
Scientists open the Stardust capsule which landed in the Utah desert in January of this year. The spacecraft spent seven years in space and traveled more than 4.6 billion kilometers.
A drawing of the comet Wild 2. The comet has revealed secrets as to how our solar system came to be.
A close up of the aerogel system used to capture the dust particles. Many had doubted whether the system to collect the comet dust would work. It was a success.
A computer generated image of the Stardust spacecraft approaching the tail of the Wild 2 comet.
