Don Brownlee
Don Brownlee
backyard bringing collected comet course dust lands material particle per primitive square tons year
Each year we have 30 to 40,000 tons of primitive material from comets and asteroids that lands on Earth, and this is about one particle per square meter per day. So during the course of our seven-year mission, there was more comet dust collected in your backyard than what we're bringing home.
actual believe billion blocks building collecting formed information particles solar stored system
We are collecting the actual building blocks the solar system was formed from 4.5 billion years ago. We believe that the particles have a lot of information stored in them.
absolutely comet identified particle seeing
You're seeing the very first, absolutely identified comet particle that has ever been seen.
believe comet mission older particles
Our mission is called Stardust, in part because we believe some of the particles in the comet will, in fact, be older than the sun.
aided blown entire eye high particle
You can't see them with the unaided eye (but) with the aided eye (through a microscope) you can see everything. A little particle blown up to high magnification is like working on an entire state! It's amazing.
bright people quite sure
We weren't quite sure how bright it was going to be and some people didn't think we would see anything.
angle appeared five half jumping lasted maybe minutes noticed ran red saw supposed tail yelling
Five minutes before it was supposed to come in, we ran outside. I saw this red thing that, at first, I thought was Mars. Then I noticed it was moving, from our angle it appeared to be climbing. Pretty soon, it had this glowing, reddish tail that lasted maybe half a minute. ... We were all yelling and jumping up and down.
collected grain
Every grain that we collected has a story to tell.
fantastic quite
We are approaching the end of a quite fantastic voyage.
Well, we'll see. But we do have some interesting stuff.
blow button felt finger guy vehicle verge
It felt like the whole thing was on the verge of disaster. There was this guy with his finger on a button to blow the vehicle up if it went off range. ... No one said anything for minutes.
analysis bringing collected comet home samples
We have successfully collected samples from the comet and we're bringing them home for analysis in laboratories all over the world.
almost contain electron identify microscope minerals questions
We'll be able to say some things almost instantly. One of the big questions is do comets contain minerals that contain water, called hydrated silicates and under an electron microscope you can identify those practically instantly.
deliver earth form helped life material molecules organic whether
What we want to know is how organic molecules actually form in comets and whether they helped deliver organic material to the Earth before life began.