We are approaching the end of a quite fantastic voyage.

In recent decades, spacecraft have passed fairly close to comets and provided us with excellent data. Stardust, however, marks the first time that we have ever collected samples from a comet and brought them back to Earth for study.

We have successfully collected samples from the comet and we're bringing them home for analysis in laboratories all over the world.

We were stunned when we got to the comet and saw incredible features - steep cliffs, overhanging cliffs, spires and many features which, oddly enough, we had never been seen on other Solar System bodies.

The fundamental reason for this mission is that we are collecting what we believe are the best preserved samples of the formation of our solar system and they are preserved because they formed these comet bodies beyond the major planets out beyond Neptune.

This comet formed at very edge of the solar system ... out by pluto ... and spent all its lifetime out there until recently it came into the inner part of the solar system, where we could sample it.

We're collecting things that are very ancient and even older than our solar system. We are literally reaching for the stars.

Each year we have 30 to 40,000 tons of primitive material from comets and asteroids that lands on Earth, and this is about one particle per square meter per day. So during the course of our seven-year mission, there was more comet dust collected in your backyard than what we're bringing home.