Some scientific missions are fonts of information that keep on giving and giving, and Stardust has been one of the most fruitful. Launched in 1999, the unmanned craft made a pass through the tail of comet Wild-2 in 2004, and returned to Earth in 2006 with the first cometary material ever retrieved in space and brought back. What scientists found in that sample has changed their understanding of how these "dirty snowballs" formed and provided clues to what the early history of the solar system was like. Now, a new study confirms the finding that the amino acid glycine, a building block of life, was among the samples brought home. And, Stardust shows, comets have a lot more to tell us.
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