Talk:Stardust (spacecraft)

Amino acids

Could someone more knowledgeable than me edit the article to mention the recent discovery of amino acids in the returned samples (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17628]?

External Links

Please date and name the articles or references.

Stardust Microchips

I was going to add it to here, but I'm going to create a separate page "List of Stardust Microchip Names", listing the names that were attached to the Stardust spacecraft (see http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/microchip/faq.html ). Nick04 18:08, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

So what happened? Why aren't the microchips and the fact that they contained people's names mentioned in the article? (http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/microchip/names2k14.html) Kalambaki2 14:08, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Needs expanding

The German article has a lot of extra information on the spacecraft and its mission that could be brought in here. -Wikibob | Talk 2005 July 2 08:02 (UTC)

Fate of spacecraft after mission?

According to our article, "... the rest of the spacecraft is destroyed in the atmosphere." but according to NASA, "the STARDUST spacecraft ... will continue to orbit the Sun after the mission." [1] Are these two quotes talking about different parts of the spacecraft? If not, our article is probably wrong. -SCEhardt 04:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Andromeda Strain, anyone?

What precautions are being taken to avoid cross-contamination between the sample and Earth's atmosphere? Did the sample container maintain an airtight seal during its crash-landing? Or has NASA lost its legendary over-cautiousness? -Kasreyn 20:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Though my opinion means nothing, I was under the impression that it would be sufficiently protected within the aerogel. It IS a solid though relatively un-dense and I wouldn't think there would be any contamination deep within the structure.   freshgavin TALK    04:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

See here for photos of the NASA clean room facilities in Utah and Houston. It looks like most (possibly all) of the pictures currently posted were taken prior to the mission. Johntex\^talk 02:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a "live" webcam page you can use to check out the facility in Houston. Awolf002 15:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

landing time

I removed a reference to EST, leaving only the UTC date and time of the event. Mainly because it is more "neutral", but also because quoting the local time on the east coast of North America for an event that occurred near the west coast looks strange... mdf 21:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

interplanetary??

Why does it specify this is interplanetary (first line) if it's not visiting any planets?

I don't think this is a good criterum for "interplanetary". Either a spacecraft goes around the Earth and/or Moon, or it ventures out to other bodies of the solar system. The first type would not be interplanetary, the second would be. Even if the visited body is not classified as "planet", it still travels that "interplanetary space". Just my 2 cents. Awolf002 18:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd say "orbital" would work fine for satellites which remain within the immediate environs of a single body, "interplanetary" for anything that travels beyond the Earth's immediate orbit but not outside the solar system, and "interstellar" for the Voyagers and other probes that leave the system. Kasreyn 10:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Updates

Stardust (spacecraft)#Aerogel sample collectors To analyse the aerogel for interstellar dust, about one million photographs will be taken

Stardust@home Update : Scanning, Testing, and Calibration Movies

According to the original plan, 1.6 million "movies" would have been needed to scan the entire surface of the aerogel collector. In practice, however, the CCD camera taking the pictures of the aerogel at the Stardust@home lab at JSC is larger than the one initially planned for the job and takes pictures of larger aerogel segments. This means that it now takes about 5,500 movies to cover each aerogel tile, and the total number of movies needed to cover the entire collector is just over 700,000.

I'd Make The edit myself but it's not a simple as changing "one million photographs" to "just over 700,000 focus movies"

focusmovie Focus Movie A stack of images taken from a single field of view of the automated microscope at several different focus depths. Each image can be thought of as a frame in a movie; running the movie forward and simulates looking throgh a microsope and turning the focus knob.

[2] And there are 40 pictures in each Focus in the tutorial

So does that make a little over 2,800,000 pictures but the estimate was lowered not raised? And then are you going to count the numerous mess-ups in making the Focus movies in the final number?

also

The article says

The collector tray contains ninety blocks of aerogel in a metal grid

The site says

Eight out of the 130 aerogel tiles have already been scanned

and What about those 2 titular pockets I042 and I075 aren’t there 132 tiles? They are numbered.

I already made the changes to Stardust@home [3] but can somebody double check me.--E-Bod 20:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The Simple solution is 130 is the Official count and 132 is WP:OR so we go with the 130 count.--E-Bod 20:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

stardust logo in lede

A forced left justified image in the lede is a no-no (MOS:IMAGES). Beyond causing screen reader issues (WP:LEDE), forced left justification of images is generally discouraged (WP:IMAGES), except of snaking images. In the lede, a left justified images is expressly disallowed ("Infoboxes, images and related content in the lead must be right-aligned.".--Labattblueboy (talk) 02:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

You are incorrect in regards to the problem a screen reader would encounter, as well as the disallowed use of images on the left side of the introduction. Firstly, for screen readers to read a caption for an image, generally the 'thumb' code must be used or an entry in the 'alt=' code must be included, which I ensured was absent. Secondly, under the image use remarks on the WP:LEDE page, as you cite, it reads:

An image's caption is part of the article text. If the article has disambiguation links (dablinks), then the introductory image should appear just before the introductory text. Otherwise a screen reader would first read the image's caption, which is part of the article's contents, then "jump" outside the article to read the dablink, and then return to the lead section, which is an illogical sequence.

Not only do the Wikipedia help pages you cite not say such image use is disallowed, one explicitly mentions the use of an image at the beginning of the introduction. If there is some screen reader out there that I am unaware of, that does read the caption text I included, the most logical change would be to take out the caption, rather than removing the image altogether. --Xession (talk) 03:23, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

• • MOS:IMAGES does expressly say no left justified images in lede. There isn't a reputable page (GA or higher) in WP that does it.--Labattblueboy (talk) 04:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you point directly to where it says that in MOS:IMAGES? I am not seeing that.--Xession (talk) 04:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

First bullet point "Infoboxes, images and related content in the lead must be right-aligned." To verify, I posted a note at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Left_justified_images_in_lede to see if anyone offers advice one way or the other. No need for conflict over a minor item.--Labattblueboy (talk) 04:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I just got rid of it. -84user (talk) 04:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

What is pure carbon (CHON)?

The "Sample processing" section contains this"

"limited pure carbon (CHON) was also found in the samples returned"

What is pure carbon? The CHON article that is linked to does not contain this term. If pure carbon is meant to mean pure carbon in the normal sense, i.e. something which consists only of carbon, then the term seems to be in contradiction to the parenthetical CHON.Davefoc (talk) 17:09, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Image caption: real dust from return trip or just pre-launch test?

Section "Sample processing" has an aerogel image with alt text caption that seems to be ambiguous with the image file's description at Commons:

Visible dust grains in the aerogel collector.

Caption in article:

Visible dust grains in the aerogel collector.

Caption of image at Commons:

NASA photo of aerogel under test during pre-launch Stardust Mission.

I'm not sure if the article caption implies that it's dust from "the" actual return trip (i.e. not "pre-launch"), or if the image is only of a general test to capture dust in aerogel. Maybe it's obvious to others, but is there a way I can clarify it? Zeniff (talk) 19:27, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Big Bang

So is the fact that the chute failed and it crash-landed a shameful dirty secret or what? People (i.e., me) want to know if the sample container was cracked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Verdana Bold (talk • contribs) 02:15, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Old comment, sure, but to answer the question, OP was thinking about the Genesis mission. Stardust landed successfully. — Huntster (t @ c) 11:30, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

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