Tiny Motes Of Stardust Are First From Outside Our Solar System

Earth may be host to some far-from-home specks. A NASA spacecraft that sent space samples back to our planet in 2006 captured an astounding find that's just coming to light: seven specks of stardust believed to be the first from outside our solar system.

www.forbes.com...

It isn't surprising. The statistical chances are that some of that extra solar system / galactic dust has been landing on Earth since forever.

Tonnes of space dust enters Earth's atmosphere every year. It is the haze seen on the horizon at sunset.

Every atom on earth originated in space.

We are stardust, literally.

originally posted by: theabsolutetruth
It isn't surprising. The statistical chances are that some of that extra solar system / galactic dust has been landing on Earth since forever.

Tonnes of space dust enters Earth's atmosphere every year. It is the haze seen on the horizon at sunset.

Every atom on earth originated in space.

We are stardust, literally.

The raw materials from which our solar system formed probably came from multiple stars that had gone nova/supernova, so it seems reasonable that dust from other stars is floating around our solar system.

And, yeah -- we are quite literally "stardust". Every atom in your body and around you that is heavier than hydrogen, helium, and lithium was formed inside of a star. The carbon atoms, oxygen atoms, and iron atoms in your body were once inside a star that died a long time ago.

As Carl Sagan said back in his 1980s TV series "Cosmos":
"We are made of star-stuff"

Yes we are made of stardust. Stardust from the same cloud of dust that formed our solar system. The significance of this discovery is that it is the first known dust from outside our system.

originally posted by: 3n19m470
Yes we are made of stardust. Stardust from the same cloud of dust that formed our solar system. The significance of this discovery is that it is the first known dust from outside our system.

Yes. I understand that. This dust mentioned in the OP is important because it is unadulterated piece of something from outside out solar system.

My point was that the dust that created our solar system (and us) came from outside our solar system to begin with. It wasn't always just hanging around. The dust that formed the Earth was created inside another star that exploded long ago....

....The carbon in your body and the oxygen you breathe is from outside out solar system. That carbon in your body and the oxygen you breathe were once inside of a star -- a star that has long since died, even before our solar system formed.

Granted, the "star-stuff" in our bodies that were once inside of another star have been altered by the processes that created our solar system, so they can no longer offer pristine glimpses of what other cosmic dust looks like the way the dust mentioned in the OP can.