Stardust's Comet Clues Turning Solar System "Inside-Out"
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The first ever analyses of comet dust are in, and they stand to revolutionize our understanding of the early solar system, scientists say.
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For the first time ever, NASA is setting off on a collision course with a comet, in hopes of blasting a huge hole in the celestial snowball and gazing upon the original ingredients of the solar system preserved inside.
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For the first time, scientists have found rings of dust around planet-bearing stars - an important confirmation of theories about how planets form, NASA announced Thursday.
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Ancient carbon-rich globules could offer a glimpse into the solar system's planet-building past and may provide clues to how life on Earth first arose.
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Astronomers have made rare images of the heart of a popular comet and revealed jets of gas spiraling thousands of miles into space.
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Today's close passage of the relatively large asteroid, Toutatis, has presented astronomers with a new ruler to measure solar system distances. By using two telescopes separated by hundreds of miles, the classic parallax method validates the asteroid's orbital path...
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NASA said Tuesday it is recycling two used spacecraft to lead new robotic missions to study comets and planets around other stars. The encore performances of the Deep Impact and Stardust probes allow the space agency to further its solar system exploration for a fraction of the cost it would take to start a mission from scratch.
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Cold, dusty discs of debris have been clearly detected around stars in other planet-harbouring solar systems for the first time by NASA&#39;s Spitzer Space Telescope.
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Astronomers have discovered something they've never seen before: a star with a tail like a comet.
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Optimistic scientists on Thursday plucked dirt and mud from a mangled capsule which crashed in the Utah desert, hoping to find enough solar dust to yield clues about the dawn of the planetary system.
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It may take much longer than scientists have thought for violent turbulence to turn grains of space dust into new planets.
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A U.S.-led team of scientists says the samples of comet dust returned to Earth early this year suggest some cosmic theories may have to be reconsidered.  The samples were collected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Stardust mission that was launched in 1999.
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Astronomers plan to slam an armchair-sized "impactor" into comet Tempel 1 to see what's inside -- and possibly help future scientists determine how to keep such space rocks from colliding with Earth.
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Astronomers have found a new class of objects in space: a neutron star orbiting inside a cocoon of cold gas and/or dust that hides a bloated supergiant star.
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Thousands of samples from the Genesis space capsule have arrived at the Johnson Space Center, where the project's curator must assemble a giant jigsaw puzzle that could hold clues to the origins of the solar system.    Wafers on five collector panels that broke into thousands of pieces when the capsule slammed into Earth last month secured samples of atoms and ions from solar wind...
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A comet discovered earlier this year has now moved close enough to be visible without binoculars or telescopes by experienced observers under dark skies. It is expected to put on a modest show this month and into January.
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New observations of dust around young stars suggests collisions of large asteroid-like objects and fledgling planets are frequent.