Alpha Centauri 2

Community => Recreation Commons => Destination: Alpha Centauri => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on August 14, 2014, 08:07:26 pm

Title: Check out this space dust: it probably came from outside the solar system
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 14, 2014, 08:07:26 pm

Check out this space dust: it probably came from outside the solar system
Vox Media
By Joseph Stromberg  49 minutes ago


(http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/36935450/westphal1HR.0.0_standard_755.0.jpg)
A false-color image of one of the likely interstellar dust particles.  (Zack Gainsforth)



In 2004, as the Stardust space probe cruised past a comet called Wild-2, it thrust out a pair of tennis racket-sized gel trays, intended to catch particles of dust from the comet and surrounding space.

Today, in an analysis published in Science, researchers from UC Berkeley and elsewhere concluded that at least seven of the millions of particles collected are of "probable interstellar origin." If the conclusion holds up upon further testing, these will be the first objects we've ever collected that came from outside our solar system.


(http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CaIT5jDrZOWkR9ccHizGLaZWDc0=/775x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/653916/westphal8HR.0.jpg)
One of the gel trays used to collect the particles. (Zack Gainsforth)


The particles are so tiny — a few microns wide, about a fiftieth of the width of a human hair — that just finding them in the gel has taken years. The gel trays were stored in a tiny capsule that the craft dropped as it swung back past Earth, and landed in the Utah desert in 2006.

In some cases, the tracks the particles made in the gel were spotted by volunteers, who pored over millions of microscope images as part of the Stardust@Home crowd-sourcing project. Other particles were found in the aluminum foil lining beneath the gel. And many of the gel panels still haven't even been scanned — so the scientists involved believe there are probably dozens more particles of interstellar dust to be found.


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A tiny piece of the gel. (Andrew Westphal)


The vast majority of the particles found in the gel were determined to have peeled off the spacecraft itself. But analysis of seven of the particles' composition, size, and structure has provided evidence that they're from interstellar space.

The presence of one particular crystalline material in two of the particles suggests they might've been formed during a supernova explosion millions of years ago, and have since been warped by long-term exposure in deep space. Regardless of their particular origin, if the particles are confirmed to have come from interstellar space by future testing, they may help scientists better understand the lifecycle of stars and other solar systems.


http://news.yahoo.com/check-space-dust-probably-came-181002789.html (http://news.yahoo.com/check-space-dust-probably-came-181002789.html)

Title: Specks returned from space may be alien visitors
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 14, 2014, 08:40:41 pm

Specks returned from space may be alien visitors
Associated Press
By MARCIA DUNN  30 minutes ago


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In this undated image provided by the journal Science shows the keystoning apparatus cutting a picokeystone out of the Stardust interstellar collector at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Scientists said seven microscopic particles collected by NASA's comet-chasing spacecraft, Stardust, appear to have originated outside our solar system. The dust collectors were exposed to space in the early 2000s and returned to Earth in 2006. (AP Photo/Science, Zack Gainsforth)



CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — There may be itsy-bitsy aliens among us.

Scientists say seven microscopic particles collected by NASA's comet-chasing spacecraft, Stardust, appear to have originated outside our solar system. If confirmed, this would be the world's first sampling of contemporary interstellar dust.

"They are very precious particles," the team leader, physicist Andrew Westphal of the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement Thursday.

The dust collectors were exposed to what is believed to be the interstellar dust stream in the early 2000s and returned to Earth in 2006. Since then, dozens of scientists worldwide led by Westphal have examined scans of the collection panels to zero in on the particles. The team was assisted by 30,000 citizen-scientists, dubbed Dusters, who reviewed more than 1 million images in search of elusive tracks made by incoming particles.

The findings were published Thursday in the journal Science.

Westphal said the suspected interstellar particles are surprisingly diverse. Some are fluffy like snowflakes.


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/5BV3Asno2wBB.AITB6NARg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTcyMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/98e045a1d6fcca1f5c0f6a706700f90f.jpg)
This undated image provided by the journal Science shows an optical microscope image of Orion shortly after it was removed from the collector. Scientists said seven microscopic particles collected by NASA's comet-chasing spacecraft, Stardust, appear to have originated outside our solar system. The dust collectors were exposed to space in the early 2000s and returned to Earth in 2006. (AP Photo/Science via NASA, D. Frank)


A few particles splatted a little when they hit the collection panels because of their speed and the fact that some ended up hitting the aluminum foils between the softer aerogel tiles meant to capture the grains. In fact, one particle believed to be following the flow of interstellar wind was vaporized because it was going so fast — an estimated 10 miles per second.

The dust is considered young by cosmic standards: less than 50 million to 100 million years old, the life expectancy of interstellar dust.


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This undated image provided by the journal Science via Stardust shows the view of a dust particle impact on Al foil collector. Scientists said seven microscopic particles collected by NASA's comet-chasing spacecraft, Stardust, appear to have originated outside our solar system. The dust collectors were exposed to space in the early 2000s and returned to Earth in 2006. (AP Photo/Science via Stardust ISPE/ NRL)


Westphal said additional testing is needed before concluding these seven specks are truly from outside our solar system. And there may be more: Roughly half the dust-collection panels have yet to be scanned. The physicist expects to find no more than a dozen interstellar dust specks in all, however, a tiny fraction of the amount of comet matter gathered by Stardust.

More than 50 grains embedded in the Stardust collectors were deemed to be debris from the spacecraft itself.

NASA launched Stardust in 1999 to collect debris from Comet Wild-2. The Stardust capsule parachuted back to Earth, landing in the Utah desert seven years later.

___

Online:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/ (http://www.sciencemag.org/)

NASA: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news116.html (http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news116.html)


http://news.yahoo.com/specks-returned-space-may-alien-visitors-180448575.html (http://news.yahoo.com/specks-returned-space-may-alien-visitors-180448575.html)

Title: Stardust grains may reveal first look at interstellar space
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 15, 2014, 12:26:43 am

Stardust grains may reveal first look at interstellar space
AFP
By Kerry Sheridan  2 hours ago


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The comet Wild 2 seen from NASA's Stardust spacecraft on March 21, 2004 (AFP Photo/)



Washington (AFP) - Seven grains of stardust that are believed to come from outside our solar system are revealing new hints about what the universe is made of, scientists said Thursday.

Some are fluffy like snowflakes, not dense like experts expected, according to the study in the US journal Science that describes the first close look at what astronomers have only been able to view from afar -- until now.

The grains were painstakingly isolated from a collector on NASA's Stardust spacecraft, a probe that launched in 1999 to take a sample of a comet's dust and bring back to Earth a tiny taste of the interstellar world.

The Stardust probe "traveled halfway to Jupiter to collect the particle samples from the comet Wild 2. The spacecraft returned to Earth's vicinity to drop off a sample return capsule eagerly awaited by comet scientists," NASA said on its website.

The probe also sampled the stream of fine dusty material that enters the solar system from interstellar space.

Though the stardust sample returned to Earth in 2006 while the unmanned spacecraft continued on its journey, it has taken a team of international scientists eight years to narrow down the search for particles that came from beyond our solar system on the collector's aerogel and aluminum foil surfaces.

Most of the specks of material it returned were actually not that exotic, researchers said.


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A model of the Stardust spacecraft in Pasadena, California on January 2, 2004 (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)


"After analysis by no less than six synchrotron particle accelerators and numerous X-ray microanalyzers, it became obvious many of the captured particles were tiny fragments of the spacecraft," said Anton Kearsley, microanalyst at Britain's Natural History Museum.

However, some of the "dust grains were not what we'd expected, and many seemed to have come from strange directions," he said.

"Only by careful plotting of impact directions were the team able to identify the seven particles that must have come from outside the solar system."

Scientists also did not want to destroy the stardust, so they took special care to analyze the grains -- less than a thousandth of a millimeter across.


- Global science effort -

The research team involved 66 scientists in seven different countries. Some 30,000 citizen scientists also helped through a web campaign called Stardust@home, working through thousands of digital microscope images.

"The analysis of these particles captured by Stardust is our first glimpse into the complexity of interstellar dust, and the surprise is that each of the particles are quite different from each other," said lead author Andrew Westphal, physicist at the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory.

Some had a fluffy makeup, similar to a snowflake, he said.

The particles also contained "crystalline material called olivine, a mineral made of magnesium, iron, and silicon, which suggest the particles came from disks or outflows from other stars and were modified in the interstellar medium," said the study.

Three of the particles detected were complex and contained sulfur compounds, which surprised some astronomers.

The findings are still preliminary and it remains to be confirmed whether the particles really are from beyond our solar system, researchers said.

A series of 12 papers detailing their methods are being published in the journal of Meteoritics & Planetary Science.

The Stardust spacecraft is no longer in operation. It sent its last signal to Earth in 2011, after NASA said it ran out of fuel.


http://news.yahoo.com/stardust-grains-may-reveal-first-look-interstellar-space-204310986.html (http://news.yahoo.com/stardust-grains-may-reveal-first-look-interstellar-space-204310986.html)

Title: Re: Check out this space dust: it probably came from outside the solar system
Post by: Unorthodox on August 15, 2014, 01:44:03 am

Stardust, the one they slammed into the Utah desert on purpose.  Did Genesis (the one they wanted to catch via helicopter with a big stick but slammed into the desert instead) ever yield anything useful/not contaminated?

Title: Re: Check out this space dust: it probably came from outside the solar system
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 15, 2014, 02:28:09 am

I do not recall.