Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Stardust@Home Lets Public Search Grains of Dust

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the bad-excuses-to-get-out-of-a-date dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In a new project called Stardust@home, UC Berkeley researchers are inviting Internet users to help them search for a few dozen submicroscopic grains of interstellar dust captured by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. Rather than relying on the user's spare PC cycles, though, the system depends on their eyes." From the article: "Though Stardust's main mission was to capture dust from the tail of comet Wild 2 - dust dating from the origins of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago - it also captured a sprinkling of dust from distant stars, perhaps created in supernova explosions less than 10 million years ago."

2 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Time is money by PrinceAshitaka · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My computer cycles I could care less about but my time is valuable to me. Are there really that many people out there that A. want to to this AND B. have the time to do this. I am sure there are many people in catagory A and in catagory B. How many people are in both catagories?

    --
    quis custodiet ipsos custodes
  2. Many eyes by spge · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If people are prepared to spot themselves on Google Earth, as well as other things, there's no reason why they won't look for specks of stardust.