Video: Stardust on your rooftops
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
Small particles of cosmic dust constantly fall on Earth, but it is extremely difficult to find them there. Scientists recently coped with this task by finding micrometeorites on the roofs of various buildings.
Particles of extraterrestrial origin ranging in size from 50 microns to 2 mm are called micrometeorites. They cross the Earth's atmosphere at high speed, then settling on the planet's surface. Antarctica is considered the best place to search for cosmic dust: the air is least polluted there, and dark dusty matter is easier to see on clean snow. Space dust is found both on the seabed and in other ecologically clean places. In cities, however, it mixes with household and man-made pollutants, so no one undertook serious searches there.
The Swedish amateur scientist Jon Larsen succeeded in finding cosmic dust in megacities. He founded the Stardust project and collected dust from rooftops in Oslo, Paris and Berlin over the years. Larsen then sent photographs and samples to specialists at Imperial College London. Year after year, they received this data, and one day they were forced to agree with the conclusions of the enthusiast from Sweden.
Scientists from several countries were involved in the work. They studied 300 kg of various material sent by Larsen, and isolated 500 particles from this array, whose origin is associated with comets and asteroids. All of them had a sub-spherical shape and reached 0.3 millimeters in diameter.
The research results are published in the journal Geology. Separating cosmic dust from urban dirt turned out to be not as difficult as scientists previously thought: micrometeorites contain minerals that have magnetic properties. Thus, you can even search for them with a simple magnet.
All particles have fallen to Earth over the past six years, and these are the freshest micrometeorites to date. Studying them will allow you to learn more about the history of the solar system.
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