Editorial: Cosmic time capsule returns

Saturday, Jan. 7, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.

Northern Nevadans, and Las Vegas Valley residents who make a road trip north, may see a bit of history flit across the sky early next Sunday as NASA's Stardust space capsule plummets home.

The Stardust spacecraft is to jettison a capsule that is scheduled to land just before 2 a.m. on Jan. 15 in a remote region of Utah's western desert. It will end a historic mission to bring to Earth samples of dust from areas of deep space that lie beyond the Earth-moon orbit -- a first for the United States.

Launched in 1999, Stardust traveled 2 billion miles just to reach Comet Wild 2, which almost collided with Jupiter in 1974. The microscopic particles collected from the comet's swirl of cosmic dust and gas are about 4.5 billion years old and may lend clues as to how the solar system was formed.

Stardust's capsule will hurtle into the atmosphere at about 29,000 mph -- the fastest man-made object to ever return to Earth, traveling 70 percent faster than the space shuttles -- in an arc that could make it visible to residents in the northern regions of California, Nevada and Utah. Appearing pinkish to the naked eye, it is expected to shine as brightly as Venus for 90 seconds and should be most visible over Carlin, a town 22 miles west of Elko. The capsule likely won't be visible more than 100 miles south of Carlin.

The end of this remarkable seven-year journey will mark the start of another fantastic voyage. Scientists will begin what could be a decadelong analysis of the particles in hopes of revealing the solar system's biggest secret -- sky-high expectations for what amounts to less than one-thousandth of an ounce of comet dust.