Dusting Up Distant Stars—Online ‘Dusters’ Find Interstellar Stardust Deep in Space
- comments
-
Eight years after the return of NASA's stardust space probe, whose primary mission was to collect dust off of nearby passing comets, astronomers reveal that they have discovered seven hair-length particles that are the first interstellar star fragments to ever be studied in labs here on Earth.
Launched into space in 1999, NASA's Stardust spacecraft was on a mission to collect dust left behind by the comet "Wild 2". Successful in its rendezvous with the comet, on its return trip home in between planets Mars and Jupiter, NASA project leads decide to try their hand at collecting other material that was expected to pass through; interstellar stardust. Repositioning the dust collector, which looks somewhat like a well-crafted tennis racket, researchers were able to collect additional particles that they have spent years sorting through here on Earth; looking for what seemed like a needle in a haystack.
The stardust particles, researchers report in today's issue of journal Science, reveal a deeper understanding of the elements that created our own solar system 4.5 billion years ago. And now that astronomers are able to analyze their components in a laboratory on Earth, they hope to gain a better understanding of the creation of the cosmos.
"This is the original stuff" lead researcher and physicist at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, Andrew Westphal says. "They are quite lovely."
The debris, however, which Westphal says was the material that gave rise to our very own planets and even life here on Earth, was not the most intriguing declaration made in the journal article. Alongside Westphal and his esteemed 65 main co-authors, who helped in the analyses and data interpretation, were 714 names listed as "co-authors" for their contribution to the discovery.
Known as "Dusters" for their role in sorting through the millions of stardust particles, the 714 individuals are honorary scientists that came from an online community called "stardust@home". Created by Westphal's research team at the University of California Berkeley, the online community that is 30,000 individuals strong was a call for help to the community to aid in the sorting and analysis of the particles found in space. Through the use of digital microscopes and films they could download through the portal right over the internet, the aspiring scientists and space enthusiasts were able to find 69 candidate tracks, seven of which were discovered to actually be the interstellar star fragments.
Pushing interdisciplinary studies and research to new limits, Wesphal's stardust discovery was a community affair, as a team from homes all around the world received news of the seven particles. Allowing for all citizens to participate in the project, Westphal and NASA have pulled back the veil and allowed the average man to make discoveries of intergalactic importance. And what's more, Westphal hopes that further analyses of these particles may give astronomers and creationists a better understanding of the conditions and the elements that created the cosmos.
"We only knew the general properties of interstellar space" Westphal says. "This [these stardust particles] is about our own origins; understanding the stuff that made our solar system, our planet and us."
