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WHY WE
CARE ABOUT COMETS
 Comets
are dirty cosmic snowballs -- small, fragile, irregularly shaped
chunks of rock, dust and frozen gases that hold clues to the origins
of the solar system.
These
icy bodies are thought to be nearly pristine examples of the original
material from which the sun and planets were born 4.6 billion
years ago. Their occasional collisions with Earth are thought
to have seeded our planet with the basic ingredients for life.
 With
the launch of NASA's seven-year Stardust space mission in 1999,
scientists are hoping to pick up some samples of this ancient
cosmic dust from a comet discovered in 1978 by Swiss astronomer
Paul Wild (pronounced "vildt").
CLICK
on the links at left to learn more.
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