Evidence for interstellar origin of seven dust particles collected by the Stardust spacecraft

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1252496
• Publication Date: 2014-08-14T18:25:21Z
• Authors: Andrew J. Westphal; Rhonda M. Stroud; Hans A. Bechtel; Frank E. Brenker; Anna L. Butterworth; George J. Flynn; David R. Frank; Zack Gainsforth; Jon K. Hillier; Frank Postberg; Alexandre S. Simi...; Veerle J. Sterken; Larry R. Nittler; Carlton Allen; David Anderson; Asna Ansari; Saša Bajt; Ron K. Bastien; Nabil Bassim; John Bridges; Donald E. Brownlee; Mark Burchell; Manfred Burghammer; Hitesh Changela; Peter Cloetens; Andrew M. Davis; Ryan Doll; Christine Floss; Eberhard Grün; Philipp R. Heck; Peter Hoppe; Bruce Hudson; Joachim Huth; Anton Kearsley; Ashley J. King; Barry Lai; Jan Leitner; Laurence Lemelle; Ariel Leonard; Hugues Leroux; Robert Lettieri; William Marchant; Ryan Ogliore; Wei Jia Ong; Mark C. Price; Scott A. Sandford; Juan-Angel Sans T...; Sylvia Schmitz; Tom Schoonjans; Kate Schreiber; Geert Silversmit; Vicente A. Solé; Ralf Srama; Frank Stadermann; Thomas Stephan; Julien Stodolna; Stephen Sutton; Mario Trieloff; Peter Tsou; Tolek Tyliszczak; Bart Vekemans; Laszlo Vincze; Joshua Von Korff; Naomi Wordsworth; Daniel Zevin; Michael E. Zolensky
• Keywords: GRAINS; IMPACTS; RETURN; COMET 81P/WILD 2; AEROGEL; WIND; WILD-2; 01 natural sciences; 520; [SDU] Sciences of the Universe [physics]; EVENTS; [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; 13. Climate action; 0103 physical sciences; SIZE DISTRIBUTION; INTERPLANETARY DUST; info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/500

Can you spot a speck of space dust?

NASA's Stardust spacecraft has been collecting cosmic dust: Aerogel tiles and aluminum foil sat for nearly 200 days in the interstellar dust stream before returning to Earth. Citizen scientists identified most of the 71 tracks where particles were caught in the aerogel, and scanning electron microscopy revealed 25 craterlike features where particles punched through the foil. By performing trajectory and composition analysis, Westphal et al. report that seven of the particles may have an interstellar origin. These dust particles have surprisingly diverse mineral content and structure as compared with models of interstellar dust based on previous astronomical observations.

Science , this issue p. 786