Stardust flight safely home
p2p news / p2pnet: The first vehicle to scoop particles from the tail of comet Wild 2 and collect interstellar dust has safely returned to earth after a 4.7 billion kilometer (3 billion-mile) journey.
Touch-down was in Utah’s Salt Lake Desert at 10:12 GMT.
This aerogel array was mounted on top of the Stardust spacecraft to collect the samples and now the Stardust space ship is back home, scientists want people with computers to help them search for a few dozen submicroscopic grains of interstellar dust.
Project Stardust@home is being organized by the University of California, Berkeley, and under it, volunteer surfers will be asked to help find the infinitesimally tiny particles with a web-based virtual microscope developed by computer scientist David Anderson, director of the SETI@home project, and physics graduate student Joshua Von Korff.
Stardust’s main mission was to capture dust from the tail of comet Wild 2 but in the process, it also, “captured a sprinkling of dust from distant stars, perhaps created in supernova explosions less than 10 million years ago,” says UC Berkeley News.
Andrew Westphal, a UC Berkeley senior fellow and associate director of the campus’s Space Sciences Laboratory, developed the technique NASA will use to digitally scan the aerogel in which the interstellar dust grains are embedded.
“Like SETI@home, which is the world’s largest computer, we hope Stardust@home will also be a large computer, though more of a neural network, using brains together to find these grains,” Bryan Mendez of the Center for Science Education at the Space Sciences Laboratory is quoted as saying.
Mendez and Nahide Craig, assistant research astronomer at the laboratory, plan to create K-12 curricula around the Stardust@home project and to get local astronomy groups to boost participation.
In an experiment using a special air gun, particles shot into aerogel at high velocities leave carrot-shaped trails in the substance, says the story, going on:
“Based on previous measurements of interstellar dust by both the Ulysses and Galileo spacecrafts, Westphal expects to find approximately 45 grains of submicroscopic dust in the collector, a mosaic of tiles of lightweight aerogel forming a disk about 16 inches in diameter – nearly a square foot in area – and half an inch thick. Though those searching for pieces of Wild 2’s tail will easily be able to pick out the thousands of cometary dust grains embedded in the front of the detector, finding the 45 or so grains of interstellar dust stuck in the back of the detector won’t be so easy.”
But the virtual microscope will allow anyone with an Internet connection to scan some of the 1.5 million pictures of the aerogel for tracks left by the tiny bits of speeding dust.
Each picture will cover an area smaller than a grain of salt.
The web-based virtual microscope will be made available in mid-March, even before all the scans have been completed in a cleanroom at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, says UC Berkeley News.
“In all, Westphal expects to need some 30,000 person hours to look through the scanned images at least four times,” it states. “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.”
Each volunteer will have to pass a test where he or she is asked to find the track in a few test samples.
If at least two of the four examining each image report a track, it’ll be passed to 100 more volunteers for verification and if at least 20 of these report a track, “UC Berkeley undergraduates who are expert at spotting dust grain tracks will confirm the identification,” the story continues. “Eventually, the grain will be extracted for analysis.
“Discoverers will get to name their dust grains.”
Once the grains are identified and analyzed, Westphal hopes the information will tell about the internal processes of distant stars such as supernovas, flaring red giants or neutron stars that produce interstellar dust and also generate the heavy elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen necessary for life.
Craig and Mendez are now creating a teacher’s lesson guide that uses the Stardust@home Virtual Microscope to teach students about the origins of the solar system.
A section of the Stardust@home web site also will be aimed at the general public.
Also See:
UC Berkeley News – Public to look for dust grains in Stardust detectors, January 10, 2006
January 16th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I wonder, how much does this all cost and how does that help the people who pays for it and should that be a priority in a world where hunger and lack of mediacal services is so widespread.
Or is all of this space research pushed by scientists who benefit through emplyment and research grants or contractors who sell the rockets and the instruments?
Remeber the trip to the moon? What a waste of money! And now Bush wants to go to Mars.
How about spending the money on education? Health care?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas
January 16th, 2006 at 11:33 am
I wonder, how much does this all cost and how does that help the people who pays for it and should that be a priority in a world where hunger and lack of medical services is so widespread.
Or is all of this space research pushed by scientists who benefit through emplyment and research grants or contractors who sell the rockets and the instruments?
Remeber the trip to the moon? What a waste of money! And now Bush wants to go to Mars.
How about spending the money on education? Health care?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas
January 16th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
“Remeber the trip to the moon? What a waste of money!”
Rafael, I like you and your posts most of the time, but please tell us all exactly how one would come to the conclusion that going to the moon was a waste of money without going there to find that out? You have to look at the bigger picture friend.
Remember that events such as going to the moon, for example, were/are a catalyst for the development of new technologies; stepping stones that lead to better and better things as our understanding evolves as well. Like the space shuttle for instance. I’d like to see you successfully argue that the shuttle was a waste of money. Might as well argue that the rain forest is a useless waste of space and needs to be burned down while your at it.
Personally, much of the stuff like this IS spending money on education. It expands our knowledge of the universe, and knowledge is power. Knowing more about the past helps us understand the future and where we may be going. And it’s not just education we’re talking about, the shuttle for instance has been very helpful in many regards to the science of biology and health as well.
If all the things involving space exploration hadn’t been done, we would all still be sitting here in profound ignorance, and text books would probably say the moon was made of swiss cheese lol. Exploration and wanting to know is in our blood. I guess perhaps it’s not as strong in some people as it is in others, or maybe it’s just too easy to miss the forest because your staring so intently at just one tree. But it doesn’t change the fact that projects like this are a good thing. Well, unless the probe brought back some evil life form that wipes out all life on Earth. Then I’ll agree with you heh.
January 16th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Knowledge is great, as is research that increases knowledge.
However, when governments spends huge amounts of money for speculative research when day yo day necessities are not addressed because there is allegedly no money, then there is a problem of priorities.
As far as I know, there never is talk of how priorities should be established and who sets them. But we know that they are being set by politicians, lobbyists and influential people. Which is what most armament and research money is rather pulled by interests and not pushed by the people or their representatives who want the research done.
Scientific research is like art in the museums. Sure art is good, but when a public museum pays a few million dollars to hang up a few abstract paintings that most people do not understand and that were sold by makers of huge profits, one has to ask what are the priorities, the values, the real purposes?
The Arecibo Ionospheric Radiotelescope, where the SETI data originates, is located near my hometown, here in Puerto Rico. I have met many people that have worked there. In the 40 years that the telescope has been searching for extraterrestrial life nothing has been found. One of the reasons that telescope has been in operation for about 40 years, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars is the large amounts of lobby money that has been paid so that jobs are created here and so that contractors make money.
BTW, it were true that there is intelligent life in other places of the universe, we could be doomed, say some scientists, because we have sent out signals showing where we are here and may have become targets for an invasion.
Back in 1959 I worked on the manufacture of the guidance system for the Jupiter and other missiles used by the U.S. Army. A few weeks before I went to work at that company (Sperry) the Jupiter had launched the first American satellite. As a result, to celebrate the launching, our department was visited by Werner Von Braun (I saw him from a distance). Shortly afterwards the scientists and engineers in the company started to work on some instrumentation for the Saturn “moon” missiles, using, I believe, existing military missile technologies. As a result of what I believe to know, it is my opinion that the project to land a man on the moon was not scientific at all but a strictly military project. Werner Von Braun, the leader of the “moon” project worked for the U.S. Army. While NASA was a was really a missile and military space development center it has been sold to the American people as a civilian space/scientific research facility. So much for “science”.
Many years later, I visited the Kennedy Center and was surprised how NASA justified itself. NASA had an exhibition of some technologies, such as satellite communications, it claimed came out of their space programs. NASA claimed that society was benefiting from those technologies. Some of the exhibited technologies, were actually developed strictly for military purposes. The fact is that all the technology that NASA has developed and that have civilian uses could have and would have anyway been developed at a fraction of the cost of NASA’s.
As you can see, I’m very skeptical about the different pressure groups, be it military, scientific, artistic, etc. that want to use the people’s money, while the people have themselves little to say about how the priorities are set.
As to space dust, let the people know how much it costs and what are the potential/probabilistic benefits. After all, even the benefits of knowledge can be quantified. The question is, what is the probable payback?
Could some of the money spent in collecting space dust have prevented the failures with Katrina? Sure. Maybe it could have possible to hire competent people at FEMA. Maybe some reaserch into hurracaine emergency management could have avoided Katrina’s aftermath. Or the disemination of what is already known about hurracaine emergency management could have helped. I live in a area frequently visited by a strong hurracaine, One every 5 years or so. It’s everyone for himself and chaos each time.
Maybe with the money that is wasted on some scientific projects government can pay artists for their work and then release all the copyrights into the public domain?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
January 17th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Like all great tasks, space exploration is more about the trip then the task set before you. NASA and the space program have given us hundreds of not thousands of important technological advances, from the powerfully useful ceramic tiles that can withstand awesome amounts of heat and greater understanding of aerodynamics to the often sited strange items like Tang and duct tape.
Science has been advanced by NASA and in turn your life has been bettered by it. The government has to subsidize this research through NASA in order to continue giving America an edge in the global market and keep our economy afloat, the space exploration is simply the task not the true purpose.
As for your rallying against the administration, all the money in the world isn’t going to stop nepotism. That is a sad fact, but without nasa do you think we would have the satellites to tell you when those hurricanes are coming or be able to predict where they will make landfall? Yes, NASA has helped you more then you can even begin to imagine. It is quite plausible that it saved your life at one point or another with all those hurricanes you lived through. Just because you can’t see the immediate benefits does not mean that there are none.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:49 pm
“Yes, NASA has helped you more then you can even begin to imagine.”
Yes, but at what cost? If mainstream American “cannot eve begin to imagines”, as if only the technically sophisticated knew what benefits were produced by NASA, then there something awfully wrong: Those that pay do not know what they get in return. Of course, what Americans do not know is how much they have paid for the many technological advances/developments made by NASA and how much would they have cost through private enterprise financed development. My guesstimate is a fraction of the cost. Perhaps a little later, as all inventions are made eventually, when their time has arrived.
“giving America an edge in the global market”
“keep our economy afloat”
But America is moving backwards in the market and its relative standard of living “race”. The American economy is actually sinking very fast, relative to the economies of other countries – even of countries that were in ruins at the end of World War II, yesterday in historical terms. The reason: Wasted resorces such as waste in the military programs and the promotion of pay-for-not working programs to buy the vote of the poor.
“Tang”
Its a terrible drink. Nothing like the real juice.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
January 19th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Considering that an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out mankind is a distinct possibility I for one would like to keep putting money into NASA to continue the development of space technology. Also, considering it took the private sector almost 40 years and the X prize to become involved in space transportation, I don’t see any reason to believe that the private industry would ever have become interested in space if not for the accomplishments of both the Russian and American space programs.
Do you any sources for those numbers about the US economy Rafael? I would like to review them.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
“Considering that an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out mankind is a distinct possibility I for one would like to keep putting money into NASA to continue the development of space technology.”
I would agree that if scientists can develop, and maybe they can, a probabilistic study of an asteroid hitting the earth and can make a proposal for developing a solution to a possible asteroid impact, and the world is willing to finance the solution, then the program should go.
However, American should not finance the program, as the potentian beneficiary is the entire world’s population and there are many countries that are even better off economically thatn the U.S.
A world wide anti asteroid program would be probably be better for many reasons, including the fact theat the program will be more likely to suceed if the best scientists and enginers are selected and these are spread around around the world. Additionally a program backed by a single American administration can actually be a pet project that dissapears after an election. Remember the Reagan star wars anti-missile project? A pet project to send defense money to California and esewhere, if you ask me.
Then again, an anti asteroid program mixed with politics may not work at all. Remeber the tsunami alert system? It was develped by scientists and engineers and finally managed by politicians that were selected not because of their talent and dedication, but because they had the money to get elected (a world wide problem).
Then again, should we spend money on the protection against asteroids, or why noy better against tsunamis, volacanoes or hurracaines, etc. individually or combined?
“Do you any sources for those numbers about the US economy Rafael? I would like to review them.”
Here is an interesting set of numbers from
http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/health/education/patents/
Patents Granted Per Million Population, 1998
Japan 994
Korea, Rep. 779
United States 289
This is a major reason US manufacturers are loosing out in world markets. The consequences are that well paid blue collar jobs with health and retirement plans have all but dissapeared in the U.S. and have been replaced with low salary, no insurance, no pension fast food and the like jobs.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com