Here's the real story behind the photo of NASA's "flying saucer"

Any species seeking to reach the stars will be pointed with the fingertips. Probably more than once.

One of NASA's latest posts on the Astronomy Picture of the Day website is an iconic reminder of the misadventures of our history of space.

"A space flying saucer landed in the Utah desert after being spotted by radar and pursued by helicopters," says the description, although NASA does not suggest a extraterrestrial visit here.

The dish picked up, half buried in the desert sand, was actually the return capsule of the Genesis spacecraft. And it was not supposed to touch so brutally.

Launched August 8, 2001, the Genesis mission constituted the ambitious effort of the space agency to send a spacecraft in the solar wind of our original star, to collect samples and send them back to Earth.

By collecting data on the composition of charged particles from the solar corona, the researchers hoped to accurately determine the composition of the star and learn about the elements that were present during the formation of the planets of the solar system.

To bring us solar wind samples, the Genesis machine was equipped with a sample return capsule holding a cartridge of solar wind materials, picked up when the craft had spent two years in orbit around the point 1 of Lagrange – one of the points in space where gravity The Earth and the Sun are precisely balanced.

The craft captured the solar wind by unfolding a series of collectors, each loaded with high-purity materials such as aluminum, sapphire, silicon and even gold.

"The materials we used in the Genesis collection dies needed to be strong enough to launch without breaking, so keep the sample while being heated by the Sun during the collection and be pure that we can badyze the elements of the solar wind after the return of the Earth, "said the project scientist Amy Jurewicz on September 3, 2004.

Five days later, this sample capsule and its precious dams crashed on the ground at an estimated speed of 310 km / h (193 mph).

What was supposed to happen was quite different – 127 seconds after the new entry into the atmosphere, a mortar aboard the capsule would blow, releasing a preliminary parachute to slow down and stabilize the descent.

Next, a main parachute was to inflate, offering the capsule a gentle descent into the Utah test and training area.

In the picture of the accident, you can see helicopters – they were flying nearby, ready to catch the capsule in the air and carry it directly to a clean room to avoid contamination of the samples.

None of these parachutes deployed.

After a thorough investigation, the error was traced back to a set of sensors, barely the size of the 39, metal end of a pencil. They had been installed upside down.

These tiny machines were supposed to detect the increase of the forces of acceleration when the capsule collapsed to the ground and trigger the deployment of the parachutes.

As you can imagine, the accident caused serious damage, breaking several berries and contaminating the precious cargo inside.

Once the sample capsule was recovered from the site of its disappearance, the project team undertook to recover all that could still be recovered and studied.

Fortunately, the Genesis mission was not completely ruined even after such a spectacular arrival of the sample capsule. Some of the robust collection materials survived and the researchers managed to clean the surfaces without disturbing the integrated solar material.

In the space of three years, a series of articles have been published on the findings of Genesis. Through this bold mission, we learned unprecedented details about the composition of the Sun and the elemental differences between our star and the inner planets of the solar system.

"The Sun is home to over 99% of the material currently in our solar system, so it's a good idea to get to know it better," said Genesis Senior Researcher Don Burnett of the California Institute of Science. Technology, in 2011.

"Although it was more difficult than expected, we answered a few important questions and, like all successful missions, we generated a lot more."

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