In what seemed like an unattainable feat, scientists at NASA found a revolutionary way of recreating a red giant star's dust that is also responsible for the formation of a planet-forming interstellar dust to better understand the universe's birth.
Using a facility called the Cosmic Simulation Chamber (COSmIC) that was built up from an initial work published in the Astrophysical Journal in the previous year, scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center can now recreate carbon grains from very faraway stars and learn more about their formation, structure, and size.
Data that would come from COSmIC can also provide fresh clues in planetary science such as the types of grains are present around stars, which could in turn unlock the mysteries surrounding Earth-like planets and how they form.
In a press release, project leader Farid Salama said the harsh conditions of space were the first hurdle they had to overcome in order for them to better interpret and analyze observations from space because of the Earth's natural conditions.
With COSmIC cutting-edge technology though, the necessary and apt gas-phase with high radiation environment can now be simulated by using cold argon gas filled with hydrocarbons sprayed into a vacuum, similar to the cosmic space that has average temperatures of less than negative 270 degrees Fahrenheit or about 100 degrees in Kelvin.
The scientists then watched the substance form and develop into larger molecules and were imaged using Ames' Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).
"This type of new research truly pushes the frontiers of science toward new horizons, and illustrates NASA's important contribution to science," Ames research fellow Cesar Contreras, who is also from the Bay Area Environmental Research (BAER) Institute, said.
However, the breakthrough proceeded into a better outcome when the researchers also detected the production of tiny grains of dust.
Scientists believe that dust grains are the building blocks of universe, enveloping dying stars and then getting eventually ejected into "interstellar medium lead" to be part of the formation of planet.
In the course of experiments with the COSmIC, Ella Sciamma-O'Brien of the BAER Institute explained that they were able to produce nanoparticles about 10 nanometers in size, and grains that ranged from 100 to 500 nanometers. In sum, they produced grains up to 1.5 micrometers in diameter, almost a tenth of a human hair's with.
Afterwards, they "observed their structure with SEM, thus sampling a large size distribution of the grains produced," Sciamma-O'Brien said.
