Dust from interplanetary space is a treasure trove of information about the “stuff” between planets. Those little particles, many of them shed by comets as they regularly round the Sun, give us some tantalizing hints about what things were like early in the history of the solar system.
That’s why a group of scientists sent a mission out to sweep a little bit of cosmic dust into an aerogel “dust collector” and bring it back to Earth for study. They hope to get some insights into the materials that existed some 4.5 billion years ago, when the planets and comets formed. Comets themselves are bigger treasure troves, carrying ices and gases left over from the chaotic conditions in the early solar system. They also have dust particles embedded in between the ice crystals. That dust might have been shed by a long-dead star as it was blowing itself to smithereens as a supernova.
I always find these missions interesting. We can’t go out for ourselves and scoop up interplanetary dust, but we can send out these amazing pieces of technology to do it for us. And, each time we reach out, we touch a piece of cosmic history. Very cool!
For more cool thoughts about the Stardust mission, visit their web page.
Finally, if you’ve tuned in for more cosmic headlines from the AAS, here you go! Happy reading!
Public to look for dust grains in Stardust detectors.
There is More to Starlight than Meets the Eye/Milky Way Churns out Seven New Stars a Year.
Scientists Find Black Hole’s Point of No Return
Astronomers Use Spitzer Space Telescope to Challenge Brown Dwarf Models.
And just in time for this week’s launch of the New Horizons Mission: