Six years, three BILLION miles.......

Thats how long and how far the Stardust comet dust collector spaceprobe has been traveling. Launched in 1999 it is due back in mid January. (2006) When this thing launched in1999 few paid it any attention. Sadly, upon it's return from a 3 billion mile space odyssey and a return to Earth after potentially capturing the keys to the beginning of the universe...

after all that....it might, if it's lucky, get 1/10th the press coverage of, say, a plane that might have a landing gear problem. (but more likely than not just has a faulty cockpit indicator) Anyways, the really freaking cool thing about this deal is the stuff used to collect the interstellar dust particles. It is called aerogel. It's wacky shit, man. More on that later.