Donald Brownlee
Donald Brownlee
Donald Eugene Brownleeis a professor of astronomy at the University of Washingtonand the principal investigator for NASA's Stardust mission. His primary research interests include astrobiology, comets, and cosmic dust. He was born in Las Vegas, Nevada...
finding materials minerals solar
The interesting thing is we are finding these high-temperature minerals in materials from the coldest place in the solar system.
far unique wild
So far, as far as we know Wild 2 is a unique object.
almost cut grain main particle worked
It's not much, but still it's so much that we're almost overwhelmed. The first grain we worked on, we haven't even cut into the main part of the particle yet.
ended might standing
They always ended up with a rigid, crusty material. If you were standing on it you might go right through it.
atoms billion bodies comet earth far four half library low picked records solar stardust sun system using virtually
Virtually all of the atoms in our bodies and in the Earth were in interstellar grains - stardust grains - before the solar system formed. We're using this comet as a library that picked up records of the formation of our solar system, and has been storing them far from the sun at very low temperatures for four and a half billion years.
comet expect fully older particles
We fully expect some of the comet particles to be older than the sun.
backward chance low
What was the chance someone would put a g-switch in backward and not be discovered, ... It has got to be a low probability event.
formed solar
We can tell the difference, absolutely, for something that formed in our own solar system, and something that formed around another star.
billion blocks building earth examine fantastic farthest formed solar soon system traveled
We're approaching the end of a fantastic voyage. This is the farthest anything from Earth has traveled and come back. Soon we'll be able to examine the building blocks that formed the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.
billion comet far library low picked records stored sun using
We?re using this comet as a library that picked up records and stored them far from the sun at very low temperatures for 4.5 billion years.
almost entire excellent left
We're in excellent shape. We've done almost everything we have to do in the entire mission...only thing left is to come into the Earth.
ancient brought cosmic edge solar treasure
We've brought back an ancient cosmic treasure from the very edge of the solar system.
comet history people planet view
This was our first view of the comet dust. We are the first people in the history of the planet to see comet dust.
comet full opened yesterday
We opened the capsule yesterday and it's just full of comet dust.