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Science 25 January 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5862, pp. 447 - 450
DOI: 10.1126/science.1150683
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Reports

Comparison of Comet 81P/Wild 2 Dust with Interplanetary Dust from Comets

Hope A. Ishii,1*{dagger} John P. Bradley,1* Zu Rong Dai,1 Miaofang Chi,1,2 Anton T. Kearsley,3 Mark J. Burchell,4 Nigel D. Browning,1,2 Frank Molster5

The Stardust mission returned the first sample of a known outer solar system body, comet 81P/Wild 2, to Earth. The sample was expected to resemble chondritic porous interplanetary dust particles because many, and possibly all, such particles are derived from comets. Here, we report that the most abundant and most recognizable silicate materials in chondritic porous interplanetary dust particles appear to be absent from the returned sample, indicating that indigenous outer nebula material is probably rare in 81P/Wild 2. Instead, the sample resembles chondritic meteorites from the asteroid belt, composed mostly of inner solar nebula materials. This surprising finding emphasizes the petrogenetic continuum between comets and asteroids and elevates the astrophysical importance of stratospheric chondritic porous interplanetary dust particles as a precious source of the most cosmically primitive astromaterials.

1 Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA.
2 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
3 Department of Mineralogy, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK.
4 School of Physical Sciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NH, UK.
5 NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research), Anna van Saksenlaan 51, Den Haag 2593 HW, Netherlands.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: hope.ishii{at}llnl.gov

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)