Researchers believe that our universe began with the Big Bang about 13 billion years ago, and that soon after that event, matter began to form as small dust grains and gases.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have combined two tiny but powerful NIST inventions on a single microchip, a cryogenic sensor and a microrefrigerator. The combination offers the possibility of cheaper, simpler and faster precision analysis of materials such as semiconductors and stardust.

Contrary to expectations for a small icy body, much of the comet dust returned by the Stardust mission formed very close to the young sun and was altered from the solar system’s early materials.

One of the biggest scientific surprises from last year's "Stardust" space mission may have resulted from contamination from the spacecraft's rocket boosters, scientists in Spain are cautioning in a report scheduled for publication in the May 16 issue of ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly journal.