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Genesis Genesis spacecraft
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Genesis
Genesis Artist's conception of the Genesis spacecraft in collection mode, opened up to collect and store samples of solar wind.

Genesis

United States spacecraft
Written by
Dave Dooling
Education and Public Outreach Officer, National Solar Observatory, Sacramento Peak, New Mexico. Coauthor of Engineering Tomorrow.
Dave Dooling
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

Genesis, U.S. spacecraft that returned particles of the solar wind to Earth in 2004. Genesis was launched on Aug. 8, 2001. The spacecraft spent 884 days orbiting the first Lagrangian point, 1.5 million km (930,000 miles) from Earth, and capturing 10–20 micrograms of solar wind particles on ultrapure collector arrays. The intent was to determine directly the composition of the Sun in order to provide more certain results than those obtained by means of spectral...

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