After 8 years, scientists think they have dust from the first time specks from outside our solar system. More precisely, they have found seven remarkable microscopic specks and analyzed them. The researchers can examine the individual chemical and structural characteristics of single grains and they found something a lot more diverse than expected. First, this is about the aspect: some specks are large and fluffy (about 2 micrometers wide), others are smaller and denser. Some particles are rich in sulfides. Two of them contain a crystalline mineral known as olivine. Each particle has its own unique set of traits. The researchers recruited more than 30,000 citizen scientists to comb through the images helping to understand what electron microscopy has shown. That research continues, and probably for many years to come because more work is needed to be done to confirm that these really are traces of interstellar dust. This can help to understand the ancient universe. The actual results were published in the journal Science and online in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
