Jan 11, 2006

Space_Exploration@Home


NASA's Stardust spacecraft is comming back to Earth bringing an important load from space: dust from the Comet Wild 2, that is believed to contain information about the conditions of our Solar System in the time of Earth's formation, and interstelar dust collect during the trip.

To analyse the dust, it is important to pinpoint the tiny particles in the aerogel in which they were collected using microscopy photos. It is important to know exactly where the dust is before trying to get it so as not to disturbing unnecessarily the rest of the sample. The odd thing is that NASA will recruit people all over the planet to do that by internet. All you have to do is to subscribe in the site with the name of the project Stardust@Home and as soon as the spacecraft arrive in Earth they will begin to apply a test to evaluate if you have the required ability to help the program.

Those who really find dust particles in the photos will even gain the right to name the dust particle as a reward for the discovery. A good oportunity to become a scientist if even you never thought in being one!

Some news about the project:

Internet users will hunt for Stardust@home

Public to look for dust grains in Stardust detectors

Stardust@home Project Brings Cosmic Dust to Your Desktop


No comments: