Organics in the Samples Returned by the Stardust Spacecraft from Comet 81P/Wild 2

Cometary organics are of great interest because these materials represent a reservoir of the original carbon-containing materials from which everything else in our Solar System was made and that may have played key roles in the origin of life on Earth. These organics are products of a series of universal chemical processes expected to operate in all galaxies, so they also provide insights into the abundance of Life elsewhere in the universe. Our understanding of cometary organics has made a quantum leap forward clue to the recent availability of samples collected from Comet P81/Wild 2 and returned to the Earth by the Stardust mission.