Posted on 01/11/2006 1:32:22 AM PST by cabojoe
Washington - NASA is looking for volunteers to spend about 30,000 hours looking at minuscule particles on a web-based microscope to identify traces of interstellar dust collected by the 'Stardust' spacecraft, expected to return to Earth on Sunday.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Tuesday it would enlist an army of internet volunteers to help in the meticulous search for rare grains of 'submicroscopic dust' that was collected along with larger grains of dust from the comet Wild 2 during the probe's seven-year, 4.5 billion kilometre journey.
The reward for discoverers will be the privilege of naming the dust grains they find. The programme was announced at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.
'Twenty or 30 years ago, we would have hired a small army of microscopists who would be hunched over microscopes focusing up and down ... looking for the tracks of these dust grains,' said Andrew Westphal, a University of California at Berkeley scientist who developed the technique to digitally scan the aerogel in which the dust is embedded.
If all goes well in the precarious landing on Sunday in the western Utah desert, scientists plan to make the images available through a web-based virtual microscope starting in mid-March.
Mission experts are holding their breath for a safe landing after last year's ill-fated return of the Genesis space probe carrying solar wind particles, which crashed after its parachute failed to open.
Volunteer scanners must pass a test to find the particle tracks in a few test samples, the scientists said. The particles 'will have made carrot-shaped trails' in the aerogel - the gummy substance that captured and immobilized the small grains.
'Searching each picture should take just a few seconds, but the close attention required as the viewer repeatedly focuses up and down through image after image will probably limit the number a person can scan in one sitting,' a statement said.
The interstellar grains were collected from the 'interstellar dust stream' that travels about 20 kilometres per second through the solar system.
Eventually, the identified grains will be extracted for analysis.
NASA took a 'risk' with the programme, because it allowed Stardust to launch 'without anyone having a clue as to how to get particles out of the aerogel after it came back,' Westphal said.
During the seven-year space journey, Westphal and others back on Earth developed microtweezers and what he calls 'micro-pickle forks' to pull out the grains.
Stardust is the first mission to return dust samples from a comet and from the galaxy.
The leading interest in the Stardust mission is the larger comet particles, which NASA scientists say could shed more light on the origins of the solar system and how oceans and an atmosphere developed on Earth.
Scientists also believe the aerogel cells captured minuscule interstellar dust from stars millions of light years away - a sprinkling of dust from distant stars or supernova explosions from the past 10 million years.
The interstellar dust was produced by the same dynamic growth of supernovas, flaring red giants or neutron stars that produced heavy elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, scientists believe.
I want some of what they're taking. I live on a dirt road, so if I'm home and my eyes are open I'm looking at dust. You couldn't pay me enough to get me to look at more of it.
I downloaded a sailing simulation. After 2 runs, 10 mins each, I decided that watching paint dry was more exciting.
My brother has a sail boat, nice one. Uses it off the coast of Maine. After 1/2 day with him sailing, I long for more wet paint.
Last time I went with him, he got mad, because I bitched so much.
I think watching the stardust mission and filming it will be enough.
I hope you get some good pictures, they will be appreciated.
A statement can talk? Apparently, this statement doesn't know much about the staying power of Internet addicts. They will do just about anything for the thrill of naming a piece of dust!
The weather is starting to get flaky, but it is still a few days off.
Some of us spend hours at microscopes daily--this would be no different, except we would have the chance to do something we get broader recognition for. Sounds neat to me. The paycheck isn't much but the hunt would be fun.
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Good Luck!
Stardust
(Carmichael-Parish)
And now the purple dust of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
Now the little stars, the little stars pine
Always reminding me that we're apart
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a love that cannot die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by.
Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely nights
Dreaming of a song
That melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
Ah, but that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song
Beside a garden wall
Where stars are bright
You are in my arms
That nightingale tells its fairy tale
of paradise where roses grew
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
my stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain.
Ah, but that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song
Beside a garden wall
Where stars are bright
You are in my arms
That nightingale tells its fairy tale
of paradise where roses grew
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
my stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain.
This sounds weird to me, but if it is on the up and up I bet there will be a lot of Trek fans who will jump all over this kind of thing.
I wonder what kind of test there will be.
I want to name my stardust "ziggy".
Live long and prosper, nanoo nanoo..
I hear ya. If I never see dust again... ;-)
It said you would be checked on your ability to spot impact tracks in the trapping medium--kinda like bullet tracks in ballistic gelatin, I'd imagine. But I'll wait for the course on what to look for first. I have some people I'd like to name stardust after, that would be fun.
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