Genesis

Genesis was a 2001-2004 NASA space mission that captured solar wind particles at Earth-Sun L1, and returned them in a return capsule to Earth. The return had problems, a parachute failing to deploy but some sample was recovered. The spacecraft, which carried the return capsule back from L1, was later put in a heliocentric (i.e., solar) orbit where it remains. The spacecraft's instruments were for the selection and capture of the solar wind particles of interest. The solar wind is largely protons, electrons, and alpha particles, but includes traces of metals as well, which were the particles of high interest.