illuminating science

I’m sure that stunt pilots must get bored of their jobs. All those death defying maneuvers, explosions going off on all sides…yep, must be pretty dull. So imagine how excited these guys must be - NASA has hired them to retrieve a capsule returning soon from a three year long mission to the sun.

The Genesis mission was designed to retrieve ions (charged particles) given off by the sun, known as the solar wind. The hope is that analysing these particles will tell us more about how our solar system was formed, which is turn might give us a better idea of the chances of life elsewhere in the universe, among other things. It’s also the first time since the Apollo missions that extraterrestrial material has been brought back to Earth. The helicoptor pilots are going to capture the capsule containing the sample as it re-enters Earth, in about 17 days time, carrying it to a safe (and soft!) landing.

Incidentally, it’s worth looking at the Genesis mission FAQ, just from a psychological perspsective. The first question is basically whether if they miss the capsule or miscalculate its return, could it wipe out a city (or at least, someone’s prize roses). The next asks whether there is any danger of viruses, LGM or what have you, in the extraterrestrial material. This is actually a pretty reasonable question, and a bit of googling should turn up some discussion on it, or you could just read Michael Chrichton’s The Andromeda Strain for a somewhat more sensation (but entertaining!) account of this sort of thing. (And that book really is fiction, despite its attempts to convince you otherwise!) The final question is whether NASA is out to prove or disprove the (Christian) Bible. I’m slightly disappointed that these are the most asked questions, though it probably reflects strongly on today’s sci-fi and creationism vs evolutionism, both of which are in the news far more than the actual science! Guess we’re going to have to change that