NASA scientists expressed their hope that samples that were extracted from the Genesis craft (which crashed earlier this week) can still be salvaged and provide valuable information about the solar system. Things did not look very promising on Wednesday after the probe crashed in the Utah desert, descending at 193 mph after its parachutes failed to open.

The capsule was launched in 2001 aboard the Genesis spacecraft and was returning to Earth with solar atoms, the first samples from space since the 1970s and the first from beyond the Moon.  The impact of the collision damaged the sealed canister containing the material.  However, NASA maintains that not all of the glass-like disks holding the particles had shattered.