The really fun part of it is discovering actual answers about what solar composition is.
Don Burnett
Four and a half billion years ago, all of the matter of the solar system, including us, was part of a giant molecular cloud. Genesis is providing the chemical composition of that solar nebula... The material is still stored for us in the surface of the sun.
system composition sun matter cloud genesis part
Once it gets there it opens up two covers and deploys high purity materials which are then used to collect the solar wind one atom at a time.
time purity wind
We are going to capture this re-entry capsule out of the air in a helicopter snatch. It will be very exciting thing to see.
air exciting thing
fun composition answers part
The chemical and isotopic composition of the sun is the starting composition from which all planets formed.
composition sun starting
What we've been missing is a starting point. These samples allow precise measurements of the abundance of elements and isotopes in the sun.
sun starting abundance missing elements
We expected to have 250 samples. Now, we have 15,000 pieces to work with.
work pieces
There are three kinds of solar wind. The spacecraft was able to move the collection panels in and out to get data from different types. We've already analyzed noble gases [helium, neon and argon], as they are not too sensitive to this type of contamination. We want to measure the ratios of isotopes of elements from the Sun's surface, and we now have direct data. We're getting interesting and important results even at this early stage.
results data interesting wind measure noble early stage important sensitive elements
In principle, we might be able to do everything we started out to do.
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