Woo Hoo! I'm going to be doing Real Astronomy!
So, I was perusing Sky & Telescope magazine tonight, and I saw a thing on Stardust@home.
Now, I don't know how many of you remember the Stardust probe, which was supposed to collect samples of interstellar particles, return to Earth, and be caught in a net by a helicopter, because its onboard samples were so fragile, a conventional landing would probably destroy them.
Yeah, the one whose 'chute didn't open, and buried. That one.
Anyway, a surprisingly high percentage of the samples survived, and now they're looking for those particles. Thing is, though, the particles are tiny, and computers suck at recognizing them.
The answer? Stardust@home:
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.php
What they do, using their microscope, is to take short "movies" of the slides, each of which are around 480x360 microns. Yes, that's really freakin' small, people. These "movies" basically consist of the microscope focusing above and below the slide. A human being, then, looks at these movies on his computer, and tries to find the impact spots from these 1 micron particles.
Yes, there is a test involved.
Anyway, I took the test, and passed, with an 8/10. One slide I misidentified a dust track, and the other I somehow missed the track. Dag nabbit!
So, yeah, I'm actually going to be doing some useful astronomy! How cool is that?!
Not only that, but there's more: Mercury's going to be making a transit across the Sun on November 8th, and the whole transit will be visible from California! More info here:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/20oct_transitofmercury.htm
I am one very happy amateur astronomer right now. :)
Now, I don't know how many of you remember the Stardust probe, which was supposed to collect samples of interstellar particles, return to Earth, and be caught in a net by a helicopter, because its onboard samples were so fragile, a conventional landing would probably destroy them.
Yeah, the one whose 'chute didn't open, and buried. That one.
Anyway, a surprisingly high percentage of the samples survived, and now they're looking for those particles. Thing is, though, the particles are tiny, and computers suck at recognizing them.
The answer? Stardust@home:
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.php
What they do, using their microscope, is to take short "movies" of the slides, each of which are around 480x360 microns. Yes, that's really freakin' small, people. These "movies" basically consist of the microscope focusing above and below the slide. A human being, then, looks at these movies on his computer, and tries to find the impact spots from these 1 micron particles.
Yes, there is a test involved.
Anyway, I took the test, and passed, with an 8/10. One slide I misidentified a dust track, and the other I somehow missed the track. Dag nabbit!
So, yeah, I'm actually going to be doing some useful astronomy! How cool is that?!
Not only that, but there's more: Mercury's going to be making a transit across the Sun on November 8th, and the whole transit will be visible from California! More info here:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/20oct_transitofmercury.htm
I am one very happy amateur astronomer right now. :)