This is exciting and fits in this thread, imo. Found at Google News:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A space capsule loaded with comet dust completed a 2.9 billion mile (4.7 billion kilometer) journey on Sunday, landing safely in the Utah desert and ending a seven-year wait for clues to the solar system's origins.

The Stardust mission ended early Sunday when the 100-pound (45 kg) capsule landed at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training range two minutes ahead of schedule at 3:10 a.m. (5:10 a.m. EST/1010 GMT).

"We visited a comet, grabbed a piece of it, and landed here this morning," said Don Brownlee, an astronomy professor with the University of Washington who is principal investigator for the Stardust mission. "It was a real thrill."

The mission marks the first time since 1972 that any extraterrestrial solid material has been collected and brought back to Earth, and the first time ever for comet particles.

Comets are thought to be leftovers from the process of planet formation, and scientists hope the dust collected by Stardust will give them clues about the origins of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

Television images showed scientists and engineers in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, cheering and applauding both at landing and earlier when the capsule's two parachutes deployed as it roared across the western United States toward its target.

"This thing went like clockwork," Stardust Project Manager Tom Duxbury said at a news conference following the landing. "To see that thing in one piece on the floor of the desert is very moving."

In 2004, a capsule called Genesis carrying solar ions crashed to Earth when its parachute failed to deploy, raising concerns about Stardust's return. The Stardust team spent six months reviewing its spacecraft's design to make sure there were no errors, and NASA officials said they were prepared for a hard landing.

RACING BACK TO EARTH

The canister entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 28,860 miles per hour (46,440 km per hour), the fastest of any man-made object on record. It took just 13 minutes for the capsule to travel through the atmosphere on its way to the remote military base.

Less than an hour after the landing, three helicopters retrieved the capsule from the windy and dark desert floor, helped by infrared and radar tracking devices.    Continued ...