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American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science, 5806(314), p. 1716-1719, 2006

DOI: 10.1126/science.1135705

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

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

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