First sample return from a comet

On 15/01/2006, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft successfully returned the first samples ever collected from a comet when its Sample Return Capsule landed in the Utah Test and Training Range in the United States. The capsule separated from the spacecraft shortly before Earth arrival and entered the atmosphere at about 12.9 kilometers per second, roughly 29,000 miles per hour. This marked the fastest atmospheric reentry of a human made object at the time. After reentry, the capsule deployed parachutes and landed in the Utah desert, completing a seven year journey of approximately 2.88 billion miles. Stardust collected the material during its flyby of Comet 81P/Wild 2 on 02/01/2004. The spacecraft used a tennis racket shaped collector filled with aerogel, an extremely low density silicon based material, to capture particles traveling at high speed. The aerogel slowed and trapped dust grains with minimal damage. The collector also gathered interstellar dust during other phases of the mission. After collection, the samples were sealed inside the capsule for return to Earth. Laboratory analysis revealed that the cometary material contained minerals formed at high temperatures, including components that originated in the inner solar system. This finding indicated that material from near the Sun had mixed with icy bodies in the outer solar system during early formation. The results challenged earlier assumptions that comets were composed only of primitive cold material and provided insight into large scale mixing in the protoplanetary disk. The successful return on 15/01/2006 marked the first comet sample return mission and provided physical material for detailed laboratory study. The Stardust mission demonstrated the feasibility of collecting and returning samples from small bodies in deep space.