NASA's Saturn probe detects interstellar dust

April 15, 2016 12:11

NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn has for the first time detected and analysed dust coming from beyond our solar system.

Cassini has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004, studying the giant planet, its rings and its moons. The spacecraft has also sampled millions of ice-rich dust grains with its cosmic dust analyser instrument.

The vast majority of the sampled grains originate from active jets that spray from the surface of Saturn's geologically active moon Enceladus, NASA said.

But among the myriad microscopic grains collected by Cassini, a special few - just 36 grains - stand out from the crowd. Scientists conclude these specks of material came from interstellar space - the space between the stars.

Alien dust in the solar system is not unanticipated. In the 1990s, the ESA/NASA Ulysses mission made the first in-situ observations of this material, which were later confirmed by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

The dust was traced back to the local interstellar cloud: a nearly empty bubble of gas and dust that our solar system is travelling through with a distinct direction and speed.

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