Stardust@home is a citizen science project that encourages volunteers to search images for tiny

interstellar dust Cosmic dust, also called extraterrestrial dust, star dust or space dust, is dust which exists in outer space, or has fallen on Earth. Most cosmic dust particles measure between a few molecules and 0.1 mm (100 micrometers). Larger particles are c ...

impacts. The project began providing data for analysis on August 1, 2006. From February to May 2000 and from August to December 2002, the ''Stardust'' spacecraft exposed its "Stardust Interstellar Dust Collector" (SIDC), a set of aerogel blocks about 0.1 m² (1 ft²) in total size, to interstellar dust. The collector media consist of 130 blocks of 1 and 3 cm thick silica-based aerogel mounted in aluminum cells. In order to spot impacts of interstellar dust, just over 700,000 individual fields of the aerogel will have to be visually inspected using large magnification. Each field, which is composed of 40 images, will thus be termed a "focus movie". Stardust@home will try to achieve this by distributing the work among volunteers. Unlike

distributed computing A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...

projects, it does not try to harness the processing power of many computers. It uses them only to distribute and present the tasks to humans. This approach is similar to the earlier

Clickworkers ClickWorkers was a small NASA experimental project that uses public volunteers (nicknamed "clickworkers" on the site) for scientific tasks. Clickworkers are able to work when, and for however long they choose, doing routine analysis that would n ...

project to find Martian craters. Participants must pass a test to qualify to register to participate. After registering and passing the test, participants have access to the web-based
--> "virtual microscope" which allows them to search each field for interstellar dust impacts by focusing up and down with a focus control. As an incentive for volunteers, the first five phases of Stardust@home allowed the first individual to discover a particular interstellar dust particle to name it. Also, the discoverer could appear as a co-author on any scientific paper announcing the discovery of the particle. As of February 2013, twelve papers summarizing the results of the Stardust Interstellar Preliminary Examination (ISPE) have been submitted to ''

Meteoritics & Planetary Science ''Meteoritics & Planetary Science'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Meteoritical Society. It specialises in the fields of meteoritics and planetary science. The journal was established as ...

'' and are undergoing the peer-review process.

Phases

Stardust@home has been divided into six phases. Phase I became publicly available on August 1, 2006, Phase II in August 2007, Phase III in March 2010, Phase IV in July 2011, Phase V in May 2012, and Phase VI in June 2013. Phase VI includes over 30,000 new "movies" representing eight aerogel tiles. The scoring method was also upgraded and, unlike the other phases, Stardust@home can no longer guarantee first finders of particles will be listed as co-authors on any scientific papers written about the discoveries.

References

External links

stardust@home
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stardust at home Human-based computation Citizen science

Phases

See also

References

External links