Stardust@Home is a Time Waster with real astronomical significance

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to search for interstellar dust particles. They're the tiny particles that measure only a few microns (one millionth of a meter) in diameter and hail from distant stars that are now floating in space. They are the only matter from other stars that reaches our solar system. Impressive huh?

If you are successful in locating one of the particles (in all there are 40-100), as its discoverer, you will get to name the particle and be named as co-author on any scientific paper mentioning the discovery of the particle. Henceforth, you will be a Master of the Universe to friend and foe alike.

This is the grandaddy of all time wasters, because even though you "waste time," you are being productive while doing so. If you're successful at your mission, you really become a recognized Master of the Universe, which is not just a meaningless virtual title.


Stardust@Home is a space science project of the Planetary Society where volunteers look for interstellar dust grains by examining aerogel "movies" using a Web-based Virtual Microscope. The Stardust spacecraft had a particle collector made of aerogel plates and, when flying through the interstellar dust particle stream, the dust grains struck the aerogel at high speeds and are now embedded there. Potential Masters of the Universe will use their Virtual Microscope to search for the carrot shaped tunnels that the particles have bored into the aerogel.

Although this may sound easy, it has taken 4 years to find 2 potential interstellar dust particles, and that's with an army of some 27,000 volunteers. Are you in?

To get started, you take a Web-based tutorial, pass a test, and then register. After successfully completing these steps, you can login to the Virtual Microscope and start viewing the aerogel movies. Don't get discouraged if, within the first 20 minutes (or the next 4 years), you don't find that familiar carrot shaped tunnel. After all, if it were easy, it wouldn't be Download Squad's Master of the Universe Time-Waster.

System Requirements:
The Virtual Microscope runs on a networked computer that is running any modern operating system and internet browser with JavaScript enabled.

Tags: interstellar dust particles, interstellar-correspondents, InterstellarDustParticles, Master of the Universe, MasterOfTheUniverse, news, Planetary, Planetary society, PlanetarySociety, time-waster, timewasters