Join the search for stardust

4 August 2006

Ever wanted to make a unique scientific discovery? Now's your chance with Stardust@home. Join space scientists as they start their hunt for specks of dust from distant stars, brought to Earth by NASA's Stardust mission.

Antenna joins the stellar search...

NASA's Stardust spacecraft captured grains of dust from outer space.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The mission
NASA's Stardust spacecraft returned to Earth in January after a 3-billion-mile journey taking nearly seven years. It captured the first ever samples of stardust to be brought to Earth from space. Scientists hope these grains will tell us more about how distant stars helped to form our planet.
The craft used a tennis-racket-shaped collector to catch dust grains from an interstellar dust stream that passes through our Solar System from deep space. Even though this took over six months scientists predict that it only captured about 45 dust particles.

Stardust's collector was filled with aerogel - a lightweight gel designed to trap passing dust particles.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Starting the search
Now scientists have to find these grains of microscopic dust. Each grain is so tiny that it can only be spotted with a high-powered microscope. But with so much aerogel to look through, it's like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Stardust's researchers have created 1.6 million microscope slides to find the dust grains - but it would take them more than 20 years to search through all these slides themselves. So the team have set up a website called Stardust@home where volunteers can use a 'virtual microscope' to help them with the search.

Scientists scanned Stardust's aerogel collector to create 1.6 million microscope slides.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Meet the scientist
Antenna spoke to Bryan Mendez, an astronomer at the University of California in Berkeley and a member of the Stardust@home team, about the task ahead.
'It's quite a difficult task. A small group of scientists at Berkeley would take a long time to do it. So we had the idea of putting the data on line and allowing the public to help us search for the dust. That's what Stardust@home does.'

Bryan Mendez, one of Stardust@home's scientists.

Image: Bryan Mendez

What will people who sign up to Stardust@home be looking for?
'The particles of dust are so small that you can't actually see the dust itself when you're using the virtual microscope. What you can see instead is the hole punched into the collector by the dust when it was captured. This is what we'll be looking for the tracks left behind by the particles.'
What happens when someone finds a particle track?
'The scientists will follow up on it and check whether they agree. They'll go to the physical collector in the Johnson Space Center and see if they can recover the particle itself. When a particle is discovered we will find who the first person to identify the track is and that person will be given the opportunity to name the particle.'

This microscope slide shows the hole made by a dust particle track.

Image: Bryan Mendez

How long will take to find the particles?
'As soon as we get the new data it will go on line. People will be finding the particles as soon as the data gets out there - we don't expect there to be much of a delay. On average we can expect to find a new particle every four days.'
'Scientists have developed a delicate technique to remove the particles. Once they're removed from the collector they can be analysed in several different ways that don't take very long at all. It's just a matter of weeks after a particle is discovered that we'll have some preliminary data.'
What do you hope to find by studying these particles?
'Our own Solar System was formed from dust and gas that was recycled from previous generations of stars. Trying to understand this dust that we've collected and its composition is an attempt to understand our own formation and the formation of our own Solar System.'

Analysing stardust could tell us more about how our own planet formed.

Image: NASA/SSPL

How you can help
The Stardust@home Website already has a whopping 120,000 volunteers ready and waiting to start the search. But the team are still looking for new recruits. If you want to take part in the search for stardust, you can find more information and register at:
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