Spacecraft retrieves seven stardust particles
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.027782
Science : A few particles of interstellar dust have been brought to Earth via NASA’s Stardust spacecraft. Between 2000 and 2002, Stardust flew through the galaxy with its dust collector panel deployed. On the panel were centimeters-thick blocks of aerogel, designed to capture single dust particles weighing just trillionths of a gram. The results of 200 days of collecting were returned to Earth and microscopic images of the aerogel blocks have been examined by some 30 000 “dusters,” members of the general public who volunteered to pore over the images and look for tracks left by the speeding particles. Seven promising impacts were found, and now researchers plan to analyze those dust specks to try to determine whether they could be primordial material originating from the Big Bang.
