Wanna do some science at home in your pajamas?
I’ve written quite a bit about Stardust, a NASA mission that collected dust from a comet and brought it back to Earth. The dust was captured using a foam called aerogel, and scientists took a lot of images of the gel, so they could search for the interplanetary dust particles. The dust leaves tracks in the gel, as show in the image above.
It’s too big a job for a small team of scientists, so they started the Stardust@Home project, where you, the public, can help the search. You go through a short training session online so you can see how the procedure works, and then you can start searching! 115,000 people pre-registered for this, and they can always use more eyes.
The fun begins at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time TODAY, in just ten minutes as I write this, when they release the data. If you’re interested, sign up! You might be the one to find a tiny speck of outer space right here on Earth.
August 1st, 2006 at 11:45 am
The Stardust@Home site is currently inaccessible, most probably because it has been melted by unusually high traffic.
August 1st, 2006 at 12:29 pm
I think I signed up for this. Thanks for the alert!
August 1st, 2006 at 12:44 pm
I have been waiting for this for a while too! I was able to connect to the server earlier this morning, but now it looks like it’s down.
I work at SSL and was able to tour of one of the particle retrieval facilities a couple months ago. My hat goes off to the scientists who devised this method of public participation!
August 1st, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Yeah! “Nice going”, BA. You directed traffic to the @home site, and now it’s too swamped to be any-good to ANY-ONE!
August 1st, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Eek, I figured the site would be swamped today, but not this bogged down. Maybe I’ll wait a day or two before even attempting to register. Looking forward to participating in any case.
August 1st, 2006 at 2:50 pm
I am a blip compared to the 115,000 they alreayd have signed up, I’m sure. Well, 10% or so.
But I have been getting emails about this. Patience. They’ll fix it.
August 1st, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Passed the training in one go. Got through aobut 39 movies before the site went “too busy, come back later”
I have two candidate dust specks.
I almost feel that I should be using white gloves for this or something.
YOU HAVE DUST IN YOUR AEROGEL, DROP AND GIVE ME 25 PRIVATE SCIENTIST!!!
August 1st, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Hey, me too! I got through around 25 movies before the site went down. It took me about five hours just to get to the test! Passed in my first try and found three candidates!
This is so cool!
August 1st, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Aww, it’s completely swamped. I was really looking forward to this. But anyways, I’ve bookmarked it for later.