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On February 7, 1999, a Delta II rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida. The Rocket propelled the Stardust Spacecraft on its mission to collect tail dust from a comet named Wild 2, (pronounced “Vilt 2″ after the name of its Swiss discoverer). This is the first ever space mission dedicated exclusively to the exploration of a comet.

With equipment like a Dust Flux Monitor and a Comet and Interstellar Dust Analyzer, Stardust is all set to collect dust particles and report its findings back to earth. The stellar dust samples will be stored in a specially designed grid that looks like a large tennis racket. The grid sections are filled with a substance called Aerogel and the comet dust will be suspended in the Aerogel for safekeeping on the journey home.

The Stardust Mission returned on January 15, 2006. The Stardust sample return capsule had a soft landing in the US Air Force’s Utah Test and Training Range at 3:10 am MST.

Scientists hope that the specks of comet dust collected by the Stardust Mission will help us understand the evolution of the Sun, the planets and possibly even the origin of life itself!

Did you ever think that the secrets of the universe might be contained in a speck of dust? The next time you look at the night sky, imagine yourself surrounded by the shimmering stardust of a comet’s tail. Who knows what you might discover as you travel among the millions of sparkling stars and in the wake of luminous comets?