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Posted by: hal_9000 Jan 11 2006, 12:39 PM

From SpaceDaily.com

Public To Look For Dust Grains In Stardust Detectors

By Robert Sanders
Berkeley CA (SPX) Jan 11, 2006
Astronomy buffs who jumped at the chance to use their home computers in the SETI@home search for intelligent life in the universe will soon be able to join an Internet-based search for dust grains originating from stars millions of light years away.

In a new project called Stardust@home, University of California, Berkeley, researchers will invite Internet users to help them search for a few dozen submicroscopic grains of interstellar dust captured by NASA's Stardust spacecraft and due to return to Earth in January 2006.

Though Stardust's main mission was to capture dust from the tail of comet Wild 2 -- dust dating from the origins of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago -- it also captured a sprinkling of dust from distant stars, perhaps created in supernova explosions less than 10 million years ago.

"These will be the very first contemporary interstellar dust grains ever brought back to Earth for study," said Andrew Westphal, a UC Berkeley senior fellow and associate director of the campus's Space Sciences Laboratory who developed the technique NASA will use to digitally scan the aerogel in which the interstellar dust grains are embedded. "Stardust is not only the first mission to return samples from a comet, it is the first sample return mission from the galaxy."

Posted by: ljk4-1 Jan 11 2006, 02:31 PM

From SpaceDaily.com

Public To Look For Dust Grains In Stardust Detectors

By Robert Sanders
Berkeley CA (SPX) Jan 11, 2006
Astronomy buffs who jumped at the chance to use their home computers in the SETI@home search for intelligent life in the universe will soon be able to join an Internet-based search for dust grains originating from stars millions of light years away.

In a new project called Stardust@home, University of California, Berkeley, researchers will invite Internet users to help them search for a few dozen submicroscopic grains of interstellar dust captured by NASA's Stardust spacecraft and due to return to Earth in January 2006.

Though Stardust's main mission was to capture dust from the tail of comet Wild 2 -- dust dating from the origins of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago -- it also captured a sprinkling of dust from distant stars, perhaps created in supernova explosions less than 10 million years ago.

"These will be the very first contemporary interstellar dust grains ever brought back to Earth for study," said Andrew Westphal, a UC Berkeley senior fellow and associate director of the campus's Space Sciences Laboratory who developed the technique NASA will use to digitally scan the aerogel in which the interstellar dust grains are embedded. "Stardust is not only the first mission to return samples from a comet, it is the first sample return mission from the galaxy."