Fergie's Tech Blog

Internet Users Will Hunt for Stardust@home

Maggie McKee writes on NewScientist.com:

With NASA's Stardust spacecraft due to drop its cosmic samples to Earth on 15 January, mission planners are trying to enlist thousands of internet users to help analyse its payload, in a project called Stardust@home.

Stardust was launched in 1999 with the principle aim of collecting dust from the trail of Comet Wild 2, which is thought to have remained nearly unchanged since its formation in the early solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago. But on its way to the comet, the spacecraft also captured interstellar dust by periodically exposing the "reverse" side of its sponge-like, aerogel collector to space.

posted by Fergie @ 1/10/2006 01:28:00 PM