Scientists make cosmic dust in lab for 1st time ever
Scientists at the University of Sydney have managed to make cosmic dust—like the kind found around stars and supernovas—in their lab.
Led by PhD student Linda Losurdo, their results were published in The Astrophysical Journal and are a close match to real space dust.
How do you make space dust?
The team used glass tubes, pumped out the air, then added gasses like nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
After zapping it all with 10,000 volts for an hour, they ended up with tiny carbon-rich particles—basically homemade cosmic dust—on silicon chips.
Super clean dust
This lab-made dust is super clean (no Earth contamination), which means astronomers can use it to build better "fingerprint" libraries for studying space.
It's a big step for understanding how organic molecules—and maybe even life's building blocks—form out there.
Losurdo also scored an award for her presentation on this breakthrough.
Understanding life's building blocks
These results could help scientists figure out how some of life's ingredients arrived on Earth in the first place.
As Losurdo put it, this work lets researchers create infrared fingerprint libraries for astronomical observations and experiments on organic chemistry formation in space.