The day was the 8th of September, 2004, when the Genesis capsule tumbled to Earth, failed to launch its parachute, and seemingly brought all the hopes of NASA's Genesis mission to a grinding halt. However, due to some nifty NASA pre-mission planning, not everything was lost, as the latest study results show.
Published in the October 19th edition of the journal, Science, scientists at Washington University in St. Louis and a large team of colleagues have provided information that will maybe one day help other scientists determine how our solar system evolved.
The Genesis mission was launched in 2001, and orbited our sun for two years before returning home. And though the planned mid-air retrieval failed due to a design flaw, the thickness that cased the solar wind samples it had gathered from the sun saved the samples from being lost in the crash.
"The arrays are made of super-pure metals and diamonds deposited on sapphire," said Alex Meshik, Ph.D., lead author and research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University. "There was no way to mark them otherwise. Now we can take a piece and know which array it came from."
Genesis' mission included the acquisition of samples from three forms of solar winds: low-speed, high-speed and the spectacular coronal mass ejections. The three winds stream at various velocities, and therefore were sampled using separate collectors. The samples collected focused on noble gases argon and neon.
However, in the study, the results from the samples retrieved from the crash site showed that all three samples registered the same isotopic composition of neon and argon in all three regimes. The noble gases provide further evidence as well.
"This is good for future measurements of nitrogen and oxygen and other elements because if it's true for noble gases, it's true for other elements as well," says Meshik.
But not only is measuring solar winds a sample of the sun's corona, but it also provides scientists who design models of how the solar system formed basic evidences. The differences in isotopic composition between the solar systems planets, and its sun, provide evidence about each planet's evolution.
The success of this mission also provides the groundwork for further successes for similar missions. "There are so many elements that other scientists would like to measure that are very, very difficult to measure because of their low abundance and high potential for contamination," says Hohenberg.
However everything isn't all gravy, considering just how badly the crash damaged samples. Equipment that had been specifically designed to test the 'clean' samples returned, have now had to be retuned and developed. Two new mass spectrometers specially made for this project have just been redesigned to measure heavy noble gases from the solar wind samples. Further measurements of the sun's xenon and krypton have also been delayed so that measurement techniques can be redeveloped and optimized.
"If you look at meteorites," said Charles Hohenberg, Ph.D., WUSTL professor of physics," the argon that you measure is very close to what you see in the sun. That's not the case for xenon and krypton and that's not the case for the atmosphere. Understanding how those things all fit together is important. Nobody really knows yet."
Joshua Hill, a Geek’s-Geek from Melbourne, Australia, Josh is an aspiring author with dreams of publishing his epic fantasy, currently in the works, sometime in the next 5 years. A techie, nerd, sci-fi nut and bookworm.
