Astronomy Picture of the Day
    


Catching Falling Stardust
<< Yesterday 16.11.2001 Tomorrow >>
Catching Falling Stardust
Credit & Copyright: ESA, NASA
Explanation: This carrot-shaped track is actually little more than 5 hundredths of an inch long. It is the trail of a meteroid through the high-tech substance aerogel exposed to space by the shuttle launched EURECA (European Recoverable Carrier) spacecraft. Like those in the ongoing Leonid meteor shower, this meteoroid is about a thousandth of an inch in diameter. It is visible where it came to rest, just beyond the tip of the carrot at the far right. Chemical analyses of interplanetary dust particles similar to this one suggest that some of them may be bits of comets and thus represent samples of material from the early stages of the formation of the Solar System.

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
 < November 2001  >
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su



1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day

Publications with keywords: comet - dust - aerogel - meteorit
Publications with words: comet - dust - aerogel - meteorit
See also:
All publications on this topic >>