STARDUST

Stardust

Stardust was a 300-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on February 7, 1999. Its primary mission was to collect dust samples from the coma of comet Wild 2, as well as samples of cosmic dust, and return these to Earth for analysis. It was the first sample return mission of its kind. En route to Comet Wild 2, the craft also flew by and studied the asteroid 5535 Annefrank. The primary mission was successfully completed on January 15, 2006, when the sample return capsule returned to Earth.

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stardust

Noun

  1. Particles of matter that fall from the stars down to Earth; often used idiomatically to suggest a fanciful or dreamlike quality.
    My sister's eyes were full of stardust, and she'd spend hours lazily planning her future life when she would make her big break in the movies.
  2. A distant cluster of stars, resembling a cloud, the individual stars of which cannot be resolved.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: stardust
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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