What was the Stardust mission?
A. Stardust is a sample return mission launched on February 7, 1999 to collect particles from the tail of a comet and particles of interstellar dust. For this purpose, it carried with it a tennis-racquet shaped particle collector composed of 130 aerogel cells. Between February and May of 2000, and again between August and December of 2002, Stardust passed through a stream of interstellar dust particles flowing into our solar system as it moves through the Milky Way galaxy. During these times, Stardust extended the collector and captured and preserved interstellar dust particles within the aerogel. On January 2, 2004, Stardust passed within 240 kilometers (149 miles) of the core of comet Wild 2, undergoing the heaviest bombardment ever endured by a spacecraft from the gas and debris shooting out from the comet. During this encounter, Stardust again extended the aerogel collector, capturing pristine cometary particles on the opposite side of the collector from where the interstellar dust
