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Stardust returns; dark matter warps us all

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Written by staff
Wednesday, 11 January 2006
>Stardust In the early morning hours of January 15, 2006, the Stardust mission will return to Earth after a 2.88 billion mile round-trip journey carrying cometary and interstellar dust particles. It will hit the atmosphere at 29,000 mph, the fastest man-made object ever to return to Earth, and that will make it visible as a pink streak in the sky, according to the Associated Press. The best viewing will be in Nevada; specifically, Interstate 80. Scientists hope that analysis of cometary samples will reveal much not just about comets but about the earliest history of the solar system. Locked within the cometary particles is unique chemical and physical information that could shed light on the formation of the planets and the materials from which they were made. >dark warp That the disc-like shape of the Milky Way is bent is nothing new, but researchers from the University of California at Berkeley believe they have a new explanation, according to space.com. Using computer simulations, the researchers have shown that great swathes of dark matter, working in conjunction with the nearby Megallanic Clouds, may be responsible for gravitational forces so vast that they twist our entire galaxy.

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