CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Scientists say seven microscopic particles collected by NASA’s comet-chasing spacecraft, Stardust, appear to have originated outside our solar system. If confirmed, this would be the world’s first sampling of contemporary interstellar dust.
“They are very precious particles,” the team leader, physicist Andrew Westphal of the University of California at Berkeley, said in a statement Thursday.
The dust collectors were exposed to what is thought to be the interstellar dust stream in the early 2000s and returned to Earth in 2006. Since then, dozens of scientists worldwide led by Westphal have examined scans of the collection panels to zero in on the particles.
The dust is considered young by cosmic standards: under 50 million to 100 million years old, the life expectancy of interstellar dust. Westphal said the suspected interstellar particles are surprisingly diverse. Some are fluffy like snowflakes.
The findings were published Thursday in the journal Science.
