Though most late excitement border comets has been sharpen on Rosetta and her landerPhilaebecoming the first manmade object to do a control landing place on the surface of a comet , a late promulgation has make for the charge of comet a bit closer to base . A radical of research worker happen upon particles of comet dust embedded under the ice in Antarctica ; the first meter comet dust has ever been found on the open of the planet . Takaaki Noguchi of Kyushu University is lead author of the paper , which was publish inEarth and Planetary Science Letters .
Comet dust , more formally known as “ chondritic porous interplanetary dust subatomic particle , ” was assumed to be unable to survive on Earth ’s surface because they ’re passing fragile and poriferous . Noguchi ’s team expose the particles after drilling 17 measure ( 58 feet ) down into the ice-skating rink . Not only that , but they were in exceptionally practiced shape .
These particles are commonly regain for report by high - altitude plane with collection plates coated in silicon oil , which is sticky enough to trammel the corpuscle falling through the stratosphere . Unfortunately , using this crude contaminates the dust and needs to be cleanse off , disallow researchers from canvas any organic attributes the dust may have . The dust found in the crank does not have that contamination and will allow researchers to do a more complete analysis of the particles .
Not only is thecomet dustfound in Antarctica cleaner than what is collected with planes , it is more plentiful . After several hour of the plane flying around , researcher are lucky to get a single speck of junk to study . This little availableness of fabric limits the rate of experiments . On the other mitt , melting blow and chalk from two unlike site yielded over 3,000 micrometeor , 40 of which were take for to be comet dust . This will give researcher much more exemption in the agency they can meditate these particles , and could change the game for how they are collected .
A2010 studyfrom an unrelated radical chance evidence of comet piece with an abnormally high carbon subject matter , but this dust has been support to have fare from a comet and is more in line with what would be expected from a comet ’s composition , ground onresultsfrom NASA ’s Stardust mission .
By analyzing comet debris — pristine and preserved dust , at that — investigator will be able to find clues about what comet may have brought to Earth while the planet was forming . Comets are commonly believe to have bring water system and organic atom that could have been the forerunner to liveliness , and these molecule could aid answer those question . The particles discover are some of the one-time cosmic samples available for study .
[ Hat baksheesh : Ilima Loomis , Science ]
