Just came across this interesting tidbit, for those wondering what ever happened to the original Stardust spacecraft (sans return-capsule). Bringing the concept of "recycling" to a whole new level, Stardust has been assigned a new mission - following up to Deep Impact's visit to the comet Tempel-1. The article also notes how Deep Impact itself has been re-commissioned for further exploration - kudos to NASA for stretching space research dollars by getting the most out of its current assets!!
Thanks for that link. It's good to know that Stardust is still alive and doing service.
Shame that it can't now collect some of that "powdery flow" and return it to us.
You know, Deep Impact was how I heard of Stardust! Did anyone else take a guess in the contest?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, they ran a fun little contest to guess the size of the impact. Since they didn't know what the comet was made of, they didn't know what size it would be. Simply put, the softer the comet, the deeper the impact and the smaller the hole. What was unaccounted for was the dust. We placed our guesses and waited for the impact. Then we waited for the results. And waited. Then they finally came out months later and said they just couldn't see what the size was and the "winners" were just randomly chosen from all entries. It was a "stellar oops"! I thought it was great because it just goes to show how science leads to interesting results. It was also a brilliant PR move to get people motivated about what was going on.
I don't remember what my guess was, but just for giggles, I'd love to know the size of the impact and who were the closest guessers.
The article also notes how Deep Impact itself has been re-commissioned for further exploration - kudos to NASA for stretching space research dollars by getting the most out of its current assets!!
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