Launched to outer space in 1999, the Stardust spacecraft of NASA returned to Earth in 2006 and brought home some unusual tiny particles that could explain the evolution and origin of interstellar dust that till this day could merely be predicted from astronomical observations.
UC Berkeley’s issued statement explained that red giants, supernovas and other developed stars create interstellar dust and produce heavy elements such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon that are important to life.
Scientists, however, emphasized that more tests must be made before they can conclude that the debris collected really came from interstellar space. These dust particles, when confirmed of their nature, would be the first ever samples of modern interstellar dust.
"These are the most challenging objects we will ever have in the lab for study, and it is a triumph that we have made as much progress in their analysis as we have," Michael Zolensky, Stardust laboratory curator at the Johnson Space Center of NASA in Houston and Science paper coauthor, said in a statement.
Studying the carrier, the scientists said that the aerogel and aluminum foil dust collectors of Stardust gathered the seven particles being studied. They assumed the particles possibly came from outside the solar system, probably created millions of years ago in a supernova explosion and then changed by its exposure to the intense space environment.
Based on their initial findings, the dust particles are more varied in chemical structure and composition than expected.
“The fact that the two largest fluffy particles have crystalline material – a magnesium-iron-silicate mineral called olivine – may imply that these are particles that came from the disks around other stars and were modified in the interstellar medium,” study’s lead author Andrew Westphal, who is also a Space Sciences Laboratory physicist in the UC Berkeley, said in a statement.
“This dust is relatively new, since the lifetime of interstellar dust is only 50 to 100 million years, so we are sampling our contemporary galaxy,” meanwhile said Anna Butterworth, research physicist at UC Berkeley.
Westphal added that they appear to be getting their first glimpse of the variety of interstellar dust particles that are impossible to explore through mere astronomical observations.
The findings of the report on the data collection of NASA’s Stardust spacecraft appeared on the Science journal on Aug.15. NASA funded the analysis of Stardust, along with additional resources from Department of Energy.
