[meteorite-list] Stardust at Home Update - June 12, 2006

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/stardustathome/update_061206.html

Stardust at home Update: Scanning, Testing, and Calibration Movies
Amir Alexander
The Planetary Society
June 12 , 2006:

Following a slow start, the scanning of the Stardust aerogel is
proceeding smoothly at the Johnson Space Center (JSC). Eight out of the
130 aerogel tiles have already been scanned, and four additional tiles
are now scanned every week. At this rate, scanning the entire surface of
the aerogel collector should take about 30 weeks.

According to the original plan, 1.6 million "movies" would have been
needed to scan the entire surface of the aerogel collector. In practice,
however, the CCD camera taking the pictures of the aerogel at the
Stardust at home lab at JSC is larger than the one initially planned for
the job and takes pictures of larger aerogel segments. This means that
it now takes about 5,500 movies to cover each aerogel tile, and the
total number of movies needed to cover the entire collector is just over
700,000.

Back in Berkeley, Andrew Westphal and his team have been picking out
sample movies and checking them for quality and focus. It took a while
to get it right, and several segments of the aerogel had to be scanned
multiple times, but the problems now seem resolved. The samples are now
consistently good, and the scanning is proceeding with little delay.

In addition, the Stardust at home crew has been
hard at work producing "calibration movies." These look for all intents
and purposes like real Stardust at home movies, containing the telltale
signs of an interstellar dust particle track. In fact, the calibration
movies are artificially produced by combining real Stardust at home movies
with track images taken from aerogel bombarded with particles at an
accelerator in Germany. These calibration movies will be interspersed
among the "real" Stardust at home movies that will be sent out to users
around the world. By tracking whether any individual user detects or
ignores the tracks in the planted movies, the Stardust at home team will
get a pretty good idea of the user's level of skill or - just as likely
- whether he or she is paying attention! Only results from users with a
proven track record will be considered in pinpointing the location of
real interstellar dust particles.

As of now, the Stardust at home has not
committed to a launch date for the project. Past experience has taught
them that unforeseen difficulties might pop up at any time. "That's how
it is with research" Andrew Westphal says philosophically. But with each
difficulty laid to rest and each hurdle surmounted, the day is fast
approaching when Stardust at home will go live. Stay Tuned!