Contaminated capture?

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JoeBelangre
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:20 pm

Contaminated capture?

Post by JoeBelangre »

Is it possible the impact test has contaminated the samples gathered? I am sorry if this question has risen previously, but I could not find a prior subject related to this question.
the moon
Posts: 177
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:34 am

Post by the moon »

What impact test? You mean the one they did to get the pictures for the calibration movies? That was done on a totally different collector.
JoeBelangre
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:20 pm

Same Comet?

Post by JoeBelangre »

If it's the same comet, does it seem so impossible that the particles of that impact would still produce various density elements? What difference would it make if you used a collector now or years from now, isn't it possible that the impact would contaminate the comet for the rest of it's existence?
GelDelve

Post by GelDelve »

I think you must be thinking of the "Deep Impact" mission to Comet Temple I, which sent an 820-pound copper impactor into that comet in July 2006. There was also a Japanese mission "Hayabusa," that was supposed to make a small impact on the asteroid Itokawa, but if I remember correctly, they are not sure the impact was actually successful and they are having communications problems in bringing their probe back to earth. "Stardust" is a separate mission to Comet Wild2, which was not impacted.
jsmaje
Posts: 616
Joined: Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:39 am
Location: Manchester UK

Re: Contaminated capture?

Post by jsmaje »

From GelDelve, almost 4 years ago:
There was also a Japanese mission "Hayabusa," that was supposed to make a small impact on the asteroid Itokawa, but if I remember correctly, they are not sure the impact was actually successful and they are having communications problems in bringing their probe back to earth
Despite almost everything possible having gone wrong, Japan’s plucky little Hayabusa spacecraft recently made its way back to Earth on June 13 2010, some 3 years late, thanks to the ingenuity of the spacecraft's team. Its ambitious purpose was to gather a sample from the tiny asteroid ‘Itokawa’ (longest dimension a mere 535 metres), but whether it actually managed to do so, despite having undoubtedly briefly landed (an extraordinary achievement in itself) is still open to question. Something that will sound all-too-familiar to us stardusters!

There is an excellent article about the whole mission in the latest July/Aug issue of ‘The Planetary Report’, from the Planetary Society, and I reproduce two of the several photos (the society’s website at planetary.org has only a brief summary at present).
The first is captioned:
  • “Shortly before we went to press, the Japanese released this photo of the inside of the sample-return capsule. It appears pristinely clean – but does contain a few large grains and many smaller ones. Testing will determine whether they came from Earth or Itokawa”.
And the second:
  • “This photo of a manipulating needle pointing at a minute dark particle was taken through a microscope. The shadow is caused by the light source at the bottom of the image. Whether this tiny speck is part of Itokawa or instead just contamination from Earth remains to be determined”.
Image

Well worth viewing also is the spectacular NASA video of the spacecraft burning up on re-entry, the sample-return capsule having being ejected just moments before and seen projected forward and falling toward the Australian outback from where it was eventually retrieved.

John
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