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(meteorobs) Stardust
Lew Gramer's report of the stardust mission reminds me of a talk given
at the Astronomy Colloquium at Cal Tech some years ago. As you must be
aware some portion of a meteor ends up as dust that ultimately settles
to earth. I forget exactly how the speaker was collecting and
identifying the meteoric dust but he described one experimental project
he had one of his student performing. She had a child's wading pool full
of water on top of one of the taller buildings. She would periodically
collect the sediment from the pool. However at some point her
experiment was terminated prematurely when a janitor discovered her pool
and thinking it trash disposed of it. It was not a total loss. I don't
remember how they could strictly identify the meteoric material. I do
remember that at least in one of the slides he projected, there were
perfect black sphericals. I am sorry that at that time I did not take
notes and so I cannot tell you better details. However this is an
experiment that one could perform with little cost. Particularly if you
have a child that has outgrown their wading pool. A tall building might
be necessary to reduce the amount of wind blown ground dust.
Incidentally I now take notes when I attend the colloquiums and seminars
at both the Carnegie Institute and at Cal Tech. At a minimum they
consist of the title, speaker and his university.
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