From the desk of…

With the rise of AI and machine learning tools, are citizen scientists still of value to scientific research? Stardust@home’s Dr. Andrew Westphal says “yes, absolutely!” and has the data to back it up. Enjoy!

For our September 2020 telecon, we get some thoughts from Stardust@home’s Dr. Andrew Westphal on why we’re confident that we are finding interstellar dust. We also chat just a bit about up-and-coming micro spacecraft, and finally, share our reactions on the recent news of possible life on Venus! Enjoy : )

For this month’s telecon, we really focus on our dusters’ experience with the new “AI-culled” foils image database and if the searching is any better for them as a result. Plus nerds just catching up ; P Enjoy!

For our June 18, 2020 telecon, we get an update from Stardust@home’s Dr. Andrew Westphal and Zack Gainsforth on the progress of the Machine Learning infused foils search, and how we now plan to apply it to the aerogel search through some very ingenious image manipulation. Plus we all got to celebrate the birthday of […]

For our May 2020 telecon, Stardust@home scientist Zack Gainsforth demonstrates and expresses his great satisfaction thus far with our machine learning enhanced Phase 2 search for interstellar particles in foils (i.e., the aluminum foil that surrounded the aerogel compartments in the Stardust collector). Enjoy!

For this month’s telecon, Stardust@home’s Zack Gainsforth brings us up to speed on the very promising advances his machine learning-based research has made in the search for interstellar dust, and how our volunteer dusters are still very much needed to finish up the work.  Enjoy!

Stardust@home, and science in general, in the time of coronavirus. Plus nerds just jabbering. Enjoy!

Our 2020 series of video chats with our amazing volunteers (aka dusters) starts off with an update from Dr. Andrew Westphal on new findings and upcoming new technology-based directions for Stardust@home. Enjoy!

For the November 2019 telecon, Stardust@home’s Anna Butterworth updates us on the findings for the recently discovered particle Bianca, named by first finder and longtime volunteer duster Augusto (aka McAngus).  Enjoy the video, and from all of us in the Stardust lab, we hope those of you in the U.S. have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

For our October 2019 Third Thursday Telecon, we were lucky enough to speak with Dr. Colin Triplett on the research team of NASA’s and SSL’s recently launched Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission to study a variety of phenomenon in the ionosphere. You can learn more about ICON at https://blogs.nasa.gov/icon/ Enjoy!