Feb 27 2003
From The Space Library
NASA researchers announced that the ER-2, a modified U-2 aircraft, had collected tiny interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) in Earth's stratosphere, which likely contained bits of ancient stars. The particles, collected over a period of two decades, included the only samples of comets that researchers were able to study in a laboratory. Lindsay Keller, a researcher in the Office of Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science at NASA's JSC, remarked that the stardust grains were typical of the kind of dust available at the beginning of the solar system~ the building blocks of the Sun and planets. Scott Messenger, an astrophysicist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, described the IDPs as rich in stardust and molecular cloud material, suggesting that the particles had remained essentially unchanged since the solar system's formation. To detect the remnants of the early stars, scientists had used Washington University's new type of ion microprobe, which measured isotopic ratios on scales much smaller than previously possible. (NASA, “NASA Finds Remnants of Ancient Stars in Earth's Upper Atmosphere,” news release 03-084, 27 February 2003, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/feb/HP_news_03084.html (accessed 16 July 2008).
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