A space capsule holding atoms collected from solar wind was en route to a tricky rendezvous with Earth yesterday, offering scientists the first material NASA has brought back from space in nearly three decades.
A pair of helicopters helmed by stunt pilots were set to hover about 1.6km above the Utah desert, ready to help snatch the refrigerator-sized capsule's parachute with a hook as it floats down at 122m a minute, or more than 1.8m per second.
"All systems are go," Don Sevilla, payload recovery leader of the Genesis project, said on Tuesday when the capsule was 216,000km above the Earth's surface. If all goes as planned, the mid-air capture was to take place yesterday.
The capsule's charged atoms -- a "billion billion" of them -- should reveal clues about the origin and evolution of our solar system, said Don Burnett, Genesis principal investigator and a nuclear geochemist at California Institute of Technology.
Genesis has been moving in tandem with Earth outside its magnetic shield on three orbits of the sun. It was to pick up speed rapidly as Earth's gravitational pull brings it closer before the atmosphere abruptly slows the descent.
That's when the helicopters take over.
Both Cliff Fleming, the lead helicopter pilot, and backup pilot Dan Rudert have replicated the retrieval in dozens of practice runs, and will have five chances to snag the capsule. If they fail, it will hit the ground and shatter the fragile disks holding the atoms. Once captured, the capsule will be tethered to a cable to cushion the impact.
Fleming and Rudert, stunt pilots by trade, were drafted for the US$260 million mission because of their expertise flying high and capturing objects. Fleming has swooped after sky surfers in the action movie XXX and towed actor Pierce Brosnan through the air in Dante's Peak. He just worked on Batman 4.
Fleming said the current job is tricky since he won't have any visual reference to judge the speed or distance of the 181kg capsule as he closes in from behind it.
Once the sample container is safely brought down, it will be packed up and driven with a convoy of armed guards to Houston's Space Center in a truck outfitted with air suspension for a gentle ride.
From there, the solar particles -- a storehouse of 99 percent of all the material in our solar system -- will be parceled out for analysis to the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Chicago's Argonne National Lab.
The Genesis mission, launched in 2001, marks the first time NASA has collected and returned any objects from farther than the moon.
Together, the charged atoms captured over 884 days on the capsule's disks of gold, sapphire, diamond and silicone are no bigger than a few grains of salt, but scientists say that's enough to reconstruct the chemical origin of the sun and its family of planets.
Scientists will keep busy for five years after Genesis completes its wild ride back to Earth. It will take at least six months before they expect to learn much from the solar wind particles.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese