On the lookout for micro-missiles from space
Science News for Students, March 7, 2019
Dust from outer space rains down on Earth all the time. My latest article in Science News for Students tells the story of the big impacts these tiny specks can have. That’s literal impacts (they may crash into satellites and damage them) and figurative ones (they impact science when researchers collect them and study them).
I especially enjoyed reading about Jon Larsen’s work for this article. He’s a jazz musician and citizen scientist who decided to spend his free time searching for micrometeorites (bits of space dust that have made it to Earth’s surface). Scientists thought that it was impossible to tell space dust apart from Earth dust in cities. Dust from many human activities (power drills, trains, pavement, etc.) looks very similar to space dust.
Spoiler alert: Larsen found a way! But it wasn’t easy. He spent a lot of time painstakingly sorting through dirt to do it. His book, In Search of Stardust: Amazing Micrometeorites and Their Terrestrial Imposters, contains many stunning photographs of micrometeorites up close.