Donald Brownlee
Donald Brownlee
Donald Eugene Brownleeis a professor of astronomy at the University of Washingtonand the principal investigator for NASA's Stardust mission. His primary research interests include astrobiology, comets, and cosmic dust. He was born in Las Vegas, Nevada...
ancient brought cosmic edge solar treasure
We've brought back an ancient cosmic treasure from the very edge of the solar system.
ability jumping totally
That's why we were jumping up and down. We were totally overwhelmed by the ability to actually see this.
libraries records stored
The most interesting thing about comets is they are libraries with the stored records of our formation.
billion desert formed great lake landed larger last million nearly particles salt seven solar space stardust system three traveling treasure
Last Sunday, after seven years in space traveling nearly three billion miles, Stardust landed in the Great Salt Lake Desert with a treasure from when the solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago. We should have more than one million particles larger than one micron in diameter.
either found siberia solar
When they formed, they were either red-hot or white-hot and we found them in the Siberia of the solar system.
half mass size
Our capsule is half the size and one-fourth the mass of Genesis,
extremely fire formed found high remarkably samples solar system
Remarkably enough, we have found fire and ice. We've found samples from the coldest part of the solar system that have mineral grains formed under extremely high temperatures.
fire found remarkably
Remarkably enough, we have found fire and ice.
formed hottest regions solar
If it was formed in our solar system, then it had to be transported from the hottest regions to the coolest.
comet history people planet view
This was our first view of the comet dust. We are the first people in the history of the planet to see comet dust.
epic overlooked people quite tends
It's really quite an epic thing. I think it tends to get overlooked because it's just a little mission, and there aren't any people on board.
far unique wild
So far, as far as we know Wild 2 is a unique object.
finding materials minerals solar
The interesting thing is we are finding these high-temperature minerals in materials from the coldest place in the solar system.
confident particles primitive stuff
I'm confident that the particles will be the most primitive stuff we've ever had on Earth.