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PIA03181: Stardust Returns to Earth (Artist's Concept)
Artist's rendering of NASA's Stardust returning to Earth. Stardust is the first U.S. space mission dedicated to the exploration of a comet, and the first robotic mission designed to return extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the Moon.
 Mission:  Stardust 
 Spacecraft:  Stardust
 Product Size:  1280 x 720 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA03181.tif (2.768 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA03181.jpg (67.08 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This artist's rendering depicts Stardust returning to Earth. Stardust is the first U.S. space mission dedicated solely to the exploration of a comet, and the first robotic mission designed to return extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the Moon. The Stardust spacecraft will bring back samples of interstellar dust, including recently discovered dust streaming into our Solar System from the direction of Sagittarius.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL

Image Addition Date:
2005-11-03