I want to be a starduster! I read an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about interstellar dust particles that may have been collected during a NASA mission—and haven’t been able to get the stardust out of my head. So, NASA sent a spacecraft on a mission to collect dust particles during an encounter with a comet in hopes that some of the particles might turn out to be interstellar dust particles—potentially the building blocks of life. But the problem is that these particles are really, really tiny, there A LOT of them, and the scope of the search was overwhelming. 700,000 fields of aerogel—the whispy concoction that functioned as cosmic dust collector—would each need to be visually inspected for the “impacts” that signify these particles, so the scientists decided to ask for help. And that’s where I come in. Anyone can get on the site, go through a tutorial, take a test, and if you qualify you can take part in the research (http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/). If you find one of the interstellar-dust-particle-impacts, not only do you get to name the particle, but your name will appear as co-author on the scientific paper announcing the particle’s discovery. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/science/space/03stardust.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
The title quote was encountered recently while reading Bachelard’s “The Poetics of Space” and was simply too perfect. Translation: “Imprisoned star caught in the instant’s freezing.”
