Stardust is the NASA/JPL mission to retrieve microscopic dust samples from both an active comet Wild 2 (pronounced Vilt 2) and from interplanetary space! You have an opportunity to search through a literal mountain of images from the StarDust project scientists which will be made available to volunteers who will be chosen to participate in this public/professional collaboration.

The scientists will take hundreds of millions of images, each smaller than a grain of salt, and people who are recruited to help analyze these images will become a part of the scientific team that will find the first ever dust grains brought back to Earth by the StarDust sample return capsule which landed successfully early Sunday morning in Utah.

Go to this link:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/10_dust.shtml

where you will read how to participate in this project. You must qualify to be selected to participate and this is the first step towards that participation. You will submit your email address and then you will be contacted by the science team to determine whether you might qualify for participation. You must start here, but if you are chosen, and if you are one of the few hundred people whose computer actually "sees" one or more of these dust grains, then YOUR NAME will accompany the scientific paper that will eventually be published concerning the analysis of these dust particles.

This is a rare opportunity and I encourage every AOAS member to participate.

Bob

I have entered my name into the list and I encourage everyone to do so also. Help be a part of history!