Are the particles stardust or comet dust?

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fjgiie
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Are the particles stardust or comet dust?

Post by fjgiie »

I am not one of them 'stronomers, however,
When we find from 40 to 1000 tracks and the particles that made these tracks are analized, what is to say that the particles won't be the same as found on the other side of the collector?

We see "falling stars" when the earth passes through old comet trails and it seems to me that the dust we find may be comet dust, not star dust.

just thinking out loud...
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Post by jamesjt »

I don't know cause I'm not one of them 'stronomers either, but I think that the cometary particles are much bigger than these interstellar particles and were found and identified already.

I don't really know though... That's just the best answer I can come up with...
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Post by tiggertim »

This is a tough question.
I believe most will be "dust" left over from comets, however, it would depend on the orientation of the collector as it passed through space.
Most comet dust follows basicly the path of the comet, but it is also "blown" outwards via the stellar wind. Particals from outside out solar system would be likely to be traveling at quite high velocities, and may catch up to the spacecraft.
I know of a study conducted using radar of metor tracks showed a small percentage were clearly from outside the solar system, as their tracks were too fast and angled differently to the majority of metor tracks.

Time will tell on this one.
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Post by tareq »

thanks for the great question, but in my opinion, and am not stronomer either, but i think it will be both stardust and comet dust (please dont make fun of me if am wrong :oops: ) but i think the most will be a stardust.
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Post by Wolter »

On the Nasa website for Startdust http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/details.html you will find an detailed description of the project. Cometary dust and Interstellar dust are quite distinctive in nature. Not something we will be able to see when looking for them, as we will scan for the impact tracks rather then the dust particals themself. But when found, there will be no mistake for the scientists.
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Post by Aquila Hawk »

If anything can be learned from studying rock from the Moon, Mars, and meteorites, it's that there won't be that much of a physical difference between terrestrial rock and the dust grains. However, we know the age of our solar system (4.6Ga b.p.). If we did some age dating technique such as radioisotope age dating or thermochronology and found a grain that is 4.8 Ga old, it's probably not native to our star.
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Post by Siegfried »

This makes me wonder, how did they keep the comet dust from the comet from entering the Stardust collection plate MEANT for collecting stardust? Perhaps I'm thinking too commonly--that space will be displaced and then the dust will bend back in to go fill it, which I know is utter nonsense. But isn't there a possible chance that there will be comet dust even on this far side of the spacecraft?
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Post by Ferrum »

Siegfried,
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/details.html has a great deal more to say on the project, but I thought you'd be interested in this tidbit related to your question. "When hypervelocity particles are captured in aerogel they produce narrow cone-shaped tracks, that are hollow and can easily be seen in the highly transparent aerogel by using a stereo microscope. The cone is largest at the point of entry, and the particle is collected intact at the point of the cone. This provides a directionality detector and is the basis of our approach of using single slabs of aerogel to collect both cometary and interstellar dust, and being able to differentiate between them because the A side of the collector is exposed in the comet dust impact direction and the B side is positioned toward the interstellar dust stream." Emphasis is my own. Another section of the site states that, "The useful collecting area is 1225 cm2 for interstellar dust grains and 1225 cm2 for cometary dust. The density of impacts will be low and this dual use causes no problem with sample cross-talk." As Wolter said, the website above has a great deal more interesting info on the project, as well as information pertinent to your question.
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Post by PeteSeeker »

Ferrum wrote:Siegfried,
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/details.html has a great deal more to say on the project, but I thought you'd be interested in this tidbit related to your question. "When hypervelocity particles are captured in aerogel they produce narrow cone-shaped tracks, that are hollow and can easily be seen in the highly transparent aerogel by using a stereo microscope. The cone is largest at the point of entry, and the particle is collected intact at the point of the cone. This provides a directionality detector and is the basis of our approach of using single slabs of aerogel to collect both cometary and interstellar dust, and being able to differentiate between them because the A side of the collector is exposed in the comet dust impact direction and the B side is positioned toward the interstellar dust stream." Emphasis is my own. Another section of the site states that, "The useful collecting area is 1225 cm2 for interstellar dust grains and 1225 cm2 for cometary dust. The density of impacts will be low and this dual use causes no problem with sample cross-talk." As Wolter said, the website above has a great deal more interesting info on the project, as well as information pertinent to your question.
good research Ferrum! :D
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Post by Siegfried »

Ferrum wrote:Siegfried,
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/details.html has a great deal more to say on the project, but I thought you'd be interested in this tidbit related to your question. "When hypervelocity particles are captured in aerogel they produce narrow cone-shaped tracks, that are hollow and can easily be seen in the highly transparent aerogel by using a stereo microscope. The cone is largest at the point of entry, and the particle is collected intact at the point of the cone. This provides a directionality detector and is the basis of our approach of using single slabs of aerogel to collect both cometary and interstellar dust, and being able to differentiate between them because the A side of the collector is exposed in the comet dust impact direction and the B side is positioned toward the interstellar dust stream." Emphasis is my own. Another section of the site states that, "The useful collecting area is 1225 cm2 for interstellar dust grains and 1225 cm2 for cometary dust. The density of impacts will be low and this dual use causes no problem with sample cross-talk." As Wolter said, the website above has a great deal more interesting info on the project, as well as information pertinent to your question.
Thanks!
Oh, btw, Ferrum=Fe=Iron? Or was that something else...?
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Ferrum
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Post by Ferrum »

Yes, well done Siegfried. Ferrum is in fact iron in latin.
The integral sec y dy
From zero to one-sixth of pi
Is the log to base e
Of the square root of three.
Um...times the square root of the fourth power of i.
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Post by Verenique »

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I have the impression that comet and interstellar dust collection did not occur in the same medium nor in the same time.

I recall - but could not find my source anymore :oops: - that there were two aerogel apparatuses. One for collecting Interstellar and one for Comet dust particles. Each of them was 'exposed' during different spatial and temporal coordinates of the mission. If I am right, that means the Interstellar Collectors kind of unfolded some distance from the comet itself, in a space where IS dust would be more likely to occur than C dust.

Ferrum's excellent reference (thank you too Ferrum) seems to reject such possibility, but I find it highly risky to try to collect interstellar particles concurrently with comet dust in the region of the comet's tail. But then of course I am nothing remotely like a space scientist, so forgive me for all nonsense - I am actually posting this to have it answered.

And another question: is interstellar dust part of or synonymous to the notorious dark matter?
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Post by Ferrum »

Verenique, hope this helps...the aerogel collector had two grids, yes, but the apparatus itself is shaped like a tennis racket, with one side collecting comet particles and side B collecting interstellar dust, and both sides have to be deployed at the same time. However, the samples of Comet Wild 2 and the interstellar dust were not taken concurrently. A nice little image showing an overview of the mission trajectory can be found at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline.html

It's my (admittedly amatuer) understanding that the concern about sample crosstalk originated because there was a degree of uncertainty with regard to the direction of every single comet and interstellar particle.

Oh, and dark matter and these particular interstellar particles are in no way synonymous. Dark matter is of unknown composition, and does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be detected directly. It has only been inferred through gravitional effects that we believe must be caused by a significant amount of matter we can't see...dark matter. Interstellar dust particles are regular matter, and are visible.
The integral sec y dy
From zero to one-sixth of pi
Is the log to base e
Of the square root of three.
Um...times the square root of the fourth power of i.
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Post by lithpiperpilot »

I do believe that we will be searching for the tiny intersteller dust, and ignore large comet particles
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Post by Verenique »

Ferrum wrote:Verenique, hope this helps...the aerogel collector had two grids, yes, but the apparatus itself is shaped like a tennis racket, with one side collecting comet particles and side B collecting interstellar dust, and both sides have to be deployed at the same time. However, the samples of Comet Wild 2 and the interstellar dust were not taken concurrently. A nice little image showing an overview of the mission trajectory can be found at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline.html
Thank you very much Ferrum!
So, I was more or less right that the IS dust collection occured both in different times and at different space than C dust did. Regarding tha racket-shaped apparatus, it literally makes a different "medium" of collection too.

So, I guess that this entire setup is a kind of safety to ensure what the most propable particles hiting the aerogel will be each time.

Thanks again for your fine way of clarifying things about dark matter to me!
Carbon number 7 inside my limbic's particular receptor, originated from a purple Supernova, generating illusions of explosions at a glance of your figure.
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