Science And Society

Stardust Discovery Mission, NASA, Comet Wild 2, early universe, space exploration. Dr. Michael Zolensky serves on NASA's Cosmic Dust Working Group and as a member of NASA's Solar System Exploration Subcommittee. He is a fellow of the Meteoritical Society and the Mineralogical Society of America. Dr. Zolensky has received NASA's Group Achievement Awards for leading the LDEF Meteoroid and Debris Investigation Team and development of the Stardust Discovery Mission, and the National Science Foundation Antarctic Service Medal. He has more than 400 publications, and is the namesake of minor planet 6030-Zolensky. Dr. Zolensky now works on the development of new techniques for the analysis of nanogram-sized extraterrestrial samples, especially as applied to the early formation of solids in the solar nebula and the detailed characterization of the chemical weathering record of asteroids.