Streaking through Earth’s atmosphere after a 7-year, 5.6-billion-kilometer journey, a space capsule carrying comet and interstellar dust landed in the Utah desert on Jan. 15. NASA’s Stardust spacecraft collected its most precious cargo 2 years ago, when the craft passed within 24 km of the dust-venting nucleus of Comet Wild-2 (SN: 7/3/04, p. 13: Available to subscribers at Cometary encounter).
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