Comet Wild 2 made from 'fire and ice'

Pristine dust from a comet that formed in the icy region beyond Neptune contains material that was once heated to a scorching 1100°C, a preliminary analysis of NASA's Stardust mission reveals.

The surprising finding suggests that some material in the outer solar system was transported there from the blisteringly hot region near the Sun – or perhaps from another star entirely. The results were presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston on Monday.

The discovery comes just two months after a capsule containing dust from the Comet Wild 2 parachuted back to Earth. After studying about two dozen of the million or so dust grains captured from the comet, scientists found minerals – such as olivine, pyroxene and spinel – that form at "red-hot" or "white-hot" temperatures in excess of 1000°C.

"Remarkably enough, we have found fire and ice," says principal investigator Don Brownlee of the University of Washington in Seattle, US. "In the coldest part of the solar system, we have found samples that formed at high temperature."

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