Impact Features on Stardust: Implications for Comet 81P/Wild 2 Dust

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1135705
• Publication Date: 2006-12-15T00:55:55Z
• Authors: Friedrich Hörz; Ron Bastien; Janet Borg; John P. Bradley; John C. Bridges; Donald E. Brownlee; Mark J. Burchell; Miaofang Chi; Mark J. Cintala; Zu Rong Dai; Zahia Djouadi; Gerardo Dominguez; Thanasis E. Economou; Sam A. J. Fairey; Christine Floss; Ian A. Franchi; Giles A. Graham; Simon F. Green; Philipp Heck; Peter Hoppe; Joachim Huth; Hope Ishii; Anton T. Kearsley; Jochen Kissel; Jan Leitner; Hugues Leroux; Kuljeet Marhas; Keiko Messenger; Craig S. Schwandt; Thomas H. See; Christopher Snead; Frank J. Stadermann; Thomas Stephan; Rhonda Stroud; Nick Teslich; Josep M. Trigo-Ro...; A. J. Tuzzolino; David Troadec; Peter Tsou; Jack Warren; Andrew Westphal; Penelope Wozniaki...; Ian Wright; Ernst Zinner
• Keywords: Hypervelocity; Comet dust

Particles emanating from comet 81P/Wild 2 collided with the Stardust spacecraft at 6.1 kilometers per second, producing hypervelocity impact features on collector surfaces that were returned to Earth. The morphologies of these surprisingly diverse created by particles varying dense mineral grains loosely bound, polymineralic aggregates ranging tens nanometers hundreds micrometers in size. cumulative size distribution Wild dust is shallower than Halley, yet steeper Grigg-Skjellerup.