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Science. 2006 Dec 15;314(5806):1711-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1135840.

Comet 81P/Wild 2 under a microscope.

Science (New York, N.Y.)

Don Brownlee, Peter Tsou, Jérôme Aléon, Conel M O'd Alexander, Tohru Araki, Sasa Bajt, Giuseppe A Baratta, Ron Bastien, Phil Bland, Pierre Bleuet, Janet Borg, John P Bradley, Adrian Brearley, F Brenker, Sean Brennan, John C Bridges, Nigel D Browning, John R Brucato, E Bullock, Mark J Burchell, Henner Busemann, Anna Butterworth, Marc Chaussidon, Allan Cheuvront, Miaofang Chi, Mark J Cintala, B C Clark, Simon J Clemett, George Cody, Luigi Colangeli, George Cooper, Patrick Cordier, C Daghlian, Zurong Dai, Louis D'Hendecourt, Zahia Djouadi, Gerardo Dominguez, Tom Duxbury, Jason P Dworkin, Denton S Ebel, Thanasis E Economou, Sirine Fakra, Sam A J Fairey, Stewart Fallon, Gianluca Ferrini, T Ferroir, Holger Fleckenstein, Christine Floss, George Flynn, Ian A Franchi, Marc Fries, Z Gainsforth, J-P Gallien, Matt Genge, Mary K Gilles, Philipe Gillet, Jamie Gilmour, Daniel P Glavin, Matthieu Gounelle, Monica M Grady, Giles A Graham, P G Grant, Simon F Green, Faustine Grossemy, Lawrence Grossman, Jeffrey N Grossman, Yunbin Guan, Kenji Hagiya, Ralph Harvey, Philipp Heck, Gregory F Herzog, Peter Hoppe, Friedrich Hörz, Joachim Huth, Ian D Hutcheon, Konstantin Ignatyev, Hope Ishii, Motoo Ito, Damien Jacob, Chris Jacobsen, Stein Jacobsen, Steven Jones, David Joswiak, Amy Jurewicz, Anton T Kearsley, Lindsay P Keller, H Khodja, A L David Kilcoyne, Jochen Kissel, Alexander Krot, Falko Langenhorst, Antonio Lanzirotti, Loan Le, Laurie A Leshin, J Leitner, L Lemelle, Hugues Leroux, Ming-Chang Liu, K Luening, Ian Lyon, Glen Macpherson, Matthew A Marcus, Kuljeet Marhas, Bernard Marty, Graciela Matrajt, Kevin McKeegan, Anders Meibom, Vito Mennella, Keiko Messenger, Scott Messenger, Takashi Mikouchi, Smail Mostefaoui, Tomoki Nakamura, T Nakano, M Newville, Larry R Nittler, Ichiro Ohnishi, Kazumasa Ohsumi, Kyoko Okudaira, Dimitri A Papanastassiou, Russ Palma, Maria E Palumbo, Robert O Pepin, David Perkins, Murielle Perronnet, P Pianetta, William Rao, Frans J M Rietmeijer, François Robert, D Rost, Alessandra Rotundi, Robert Ryan, Scott A Sandford, Craig S Schwandt, Thomas H See, Dennis Schlutter, J Sheffield-Parker, Alexandre Simionovici, Steven Simon, I Sitnitsky, Christopher J Snead, Maegan K Spencer, Frank J Stadermann, Andrew Steele, Thomas Stephan, Rhonda Stroud, Jean Susini, S R Sutton, Y Suzuki, Mitra Taheri, Susan Taylor, Nick Teslich, Kazu Tomeoka, Naotaka Tomioka, Alice Toppani, Josep M Trigo-Rodríguez, David Troadec, Akira Tsuchiyama, Anthony J Tuzzolino, Tolek Tyliszczak, K Uesugi, Michael Velbel, Joe Vellenga, E Vicenzi, L Vincze, Jack Warren, Iris Weber, Mike Weisberg, Andrew J Westphal, Sue Wirick, Diane Wooden, Brigitte Wopenka, Penelope Wozniakiewicz, Ian Wright, Hikaru Yabuta, Hajime Yano, Edward D Young, Richard N Zare, Thomas Zega, Karen Ziegler, Laurent Zimmerman, Ernst Zinner, Michael Zolensky

Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. [email protected]

PMID: 17170289 DOI: 10.1126/science.1135840

Abstract

The Stardust spacecraft collected thousands of particles from comet 81P/Wild 2 and returned them to Earth for laboratory study. The preliminary examination of these samples shows that the nonvolatile portion of the comet is an unequilibrated assortment of materials that have both presolar and solar system origin. The comet contains an abundance of silicate grains that are much larger than predictions of interstellar grain models, and many of these are high-temperature minerals that appear to have formed in the inner regions of the solar nebula. Their presence in a comet proves that the formation of the solar system included mixing on the grandest scales.

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