Stardust@Home

From the people who brought us SETI@Home, comes Stardust@Home. The project will build a large, virtual computer, from participating @home computers to serve as a large microscope. The computer microscope will be scanning the aerogel collector from the Stardust mission to find interstellar dust. Stardust, as you may recall, visited Comet Wild, and collected samples from comet. What the Stardust@home researchers are looking for however, is interstellar dust that was collected by Stardust's Interstellar Dust Collector -- not cometary dust. While there should be no problems finding cometary material -- only about 45 interstellar dust grains are expected to be found. To scan the aerogel, 1.5 million pictures will be taken of the 16-inch diameter foam, with each picture covering an area smaller than a grain of salt. @Home computers will then scan these images looking for the trails left behind as dust particles slammed into the aerogel. Those who find the dust grains will be given the opportunity to name them.

Stardust will be ending its seven year mission this weekend, when its reentry capsule collides with Earth's atmosphere on January 15th, at 09:56:39 UT. Your only chance of viewing the capsule reentry, is if you live on the west coast.