Stardust Analysis Results, initial results for comet Wild 2, including organic compounds Options

[Guest_paulanderson_*]

I thought the analysis results, as they come in, deserved their own thread. I'm interested in how these findings relate to the "weird crystals" found and reported on in the previous Nature article.

A couple more updates, from Space.com and MSNBC:

Stardust Mission Yields Ancient Comet Dust
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/060220_s...ust_update.html

Comet Dust Sparks Scientific Intrigue
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11460590

"The early results reveal that the 4.5 billion-year-old comet contains iron, sulfides, glassy materials, olivine, and what the scientists termed potentially interesting isotopic traces. They believe that these materials were also available during the formation of other objects in our solar system.

What's even more amazing is how well the first round of analysis is matching expectations. Brownlee and other Stardust scientists are holding back their first formal reports for a scientific meeting in Texas next month — but during Monday's news conference, Brownlee said the samples studied so far contain iron sulfides and glassy material such as crystalline silicates. Those ingredients are found in meteorites as well.

Later, Brownlee told MSNBC.com that there were preliminary indications of organic compounds, based on telltale infrared readings. He cautioned that the initial indications were tentative and could still be traced to contaminants.

In the weeks and months ahead, Sandford and his team will be analyzing the types of carbon found in the samples — not only to trace the organics, but also to determine whether such compounds predated the formation of the solar system."