Scientists with tweezers picked through the twisted wreckage of a space capsule that crash-landed on Earth, hoping that microscopic clues to the evolution of the solar system weren't completely lost in Utah's salt flats.
A report by China Radio international quoted NASA engineers as saying that they were stunned when neither parachute deployed aboard the Genesis capsule and the craft plummeted to the ground at 193 miles per hour, breaking open like a clamshell and exposing its collection of solar atoms to contamination.
The inner canister was flown to the Army's air field at the proving ground. Scientists say the reconstruction was expected to take several days.
The space capsule had been outside the earth's magnetic shield for three years, collecting solar wind particles that could explain how the sun formed an estimated 4.5 billion years ago and what keeps it fueled.
The mishap also raised questions about the durability of another NASA sample-return capsule called Stardust, due to land here in 2006.
(CRI September 10, 2004)
