Folks, I am really happy for the Genesis mission team as they get optimistic about salvaging the science they were looking for following the unfortunate crash landing of the space capsule. The Genesis mission aimed at capturing samples of Solar wind -particles emitted from the Sun.
The Genesis spacecraft has spent 1125 days of space flight out of which 884 days have been devoted to the collection of the Solar wind samples. Guess what was the amount of material to be collected in this labor of love - approx. 0.4 milligrams!! Moreover, the scientists down here have been looking forward to quite a few years of work ahead researching these findings. No wonder!
As the Genesis mission webiste says:
Analysis of the solar wind plasma collected by the Genesis spacecraft will enable scientists to better understand the composition of the original solar nebula. It is thought that most of the composition of that nebula has been preserved in the outer layers of the sun, so the constituents in the solar wind, which flows from the sun's corona, are presumed to be very similar to the material from which our solar system was formed.
For a superb explanation on Solar wind and more, do follow this link to the Genesis mission's website.
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