Comet samples 'overwhelm' scientists

PRISTINE comet samples returned last weekend by the Stardust spacecraft after a 4.7-billion-kilometre journey wildly exceeded scientists' expectations, project managers said.

A canister containing particles trapped after the Stardust space probe's 2004 encounter with Comet Wild-2 landed on Earth on Sunday. The samples were taken to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston for inspection.

"This exceeded all of our grandest expectations," Donald Brownlee, a University of Washington-based researcher and the principal Stardust investigator, told a news conference.