How to Collect Your Own Stardust

 

How would you like to collect some extraterrestrial dust? Scientists estimate that thousands of tons of meteorite dust fall to Earth every day. Passage through our atmosphere reduces most meteoroids to fine particles of dust. That dust then gently falls to the ground or rain washes it out of the sky. That’s your ticket to capturing some meteorite dust.

Many meteorites contain a high proportion of nickel and iron, both of which possess magnetic properties. That property of meteorite dust provides a quick and cheap way to separate it from the far more common terrestrial dust.

Fill a large bowl partly full of water. Use a glass, aluminum, or plastic bowl, not a steel one. Make sure a magnet won’t stick to your bowl. Place it on something that puts it up and away from ground level. This helps reduce the amount of Earth dust that’s kicked up by cars and wind. You need to put it out in the open where it can collect any rain. If you’re doing this during the warmest days of summer, you need to check it pretty regularly. Keep water in the bowl so the dust doesn’t dry out and blow away. You can also collect runoff water from your roof gutter’s downspout.

After several weeks, or after rain, retrieve your bowl. Get a second bowl or container. This doesn’t need to be as large as the first one. If you get rain within a few days after a meteor shower, your chances of capturing meteorite dust increase. You can check the dates of meteor showers at http://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/.  

Meteor Shower, credit NASA/JPL

Wrap a magnet in a plastic bag, and run it over the bottom of the collection bowl. Make sure you pass it over any sediment that you see in the bowl, or, better still, very slightly stir up the sediment.

Micrometeorites in rainwater

Anything that sticks to the magnet is most likely a bit of a meteorite, your own shooting star dust. Now put the plastic-wrapped magnet into the second bowl. Carefully pull the magnet out of the plastic bag. Meteorite dust makes up much of what falls off. You may only get a few sand-grain-sized or smaller pieces. Considering that the bodies orbiting in the Asteroid Belt and comets, the prime sources of meteorite dust on Earth, were created by the same material that made our sun and all the planets at the very beginning of our solar system’s formation, the age of the fragments you collect exceeds four billion years!

The Original Star-Crossed Lovers

 Look at the circular star chart and notice the three bright stars, Vega, Altair, and Deneb that sit in the center of the sky. Together, these three stars make up the Summer Triangle. You really can’t miss them. Vega is the third brightest star visible from Oklahoma. Altair is the ninth brightest we can see, and Deneb is the fifteenth.

Star map for September, The map shows the sky at 11:00 early in the month, 10:00 in the middle of the month, and 9:00 at the end of the month. Map produced using Night Vision star mapping software.

Two factors determine the brightness of a star in our sky: how much light it emits, the star’s luminosity, and the star’s distance. We rate luminosity compared to our sun’s light output. Altair is 17 light-years away and is 10.6 times brighter than our sun. By comparison, the closest star to us beyond the sun is 4.2 light-years away. Vega sits 25 light-years distant and puts out 50 times more light than our sun. Deneb is one of the most distant stars visible to the naked eye at 1467 light-years and shines an incredible 196,000 times brighter than our sun. If Deneb were as close to us as Vega, it would far outshine anything in our sky other than the full Moon and the sun!

Vega and Altair are the main characters in the Japanese Star Festival known as Tanabata. Look at the enhanced star chart showing the center of the sky, and note that Vega and Altair sit on opposite sides of the Milky Way, the great heavenly river in the sky. Vega represents Princess Orihime, a weaver who made beautiful cloth by the sky river. Her father is the God of the Heavens. Because she was so despondent at never finding love, Orihime’s father introduced her to Hikoboshi, a cow herder who lived on the other side of the Milky Way, marked by the star Altair. Their attraction instantly grew great, and they married soon after.

This star map with enhanced Milky Way was produced with SkyGazer star mapping software.

The Sky God soon became frustrated as Orihime stopped weaving her beautiful cloth, and the cows wandered all over the sky because Hikoboshi spent all his time with his beloved wife. To set the heavens right again, Orihime's father forbade the lovers from seeing each other. Orihime begged her father to reconsider. Out of love for his daughter, he allowed the two to spend one day a year together, on the 7^th day of the 7^th month, when Japanese lovers celebrate Tanabata.

But, the river of the sky proved to be too deep. Orihime cried until a flock of magpies formed a bridge for her to cross. They do this every year unless it rains on that day, in which case Orihime and Hikobosi must wait another year to be together. In Japan, young couples pray for nice weather on Tanabata so Orihime and her husband can unite for that one day. The festival is celebrated on July 7^th, but the stars are highest in our sky in September.

 

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

 This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.oklahoman.com.