# Introduction to Cosmic Dust

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### The NASA Cosmic Dust Collections

The NASA Astromaterials Acquisition        and Curation Office cares for collections of materials from across the Solar        System, and as part of that suite of astromaterials the Cosmic Dust Collections        curates the small material which naturally falls to Earth. Cosmic dust includes        *interplanetary dust particles (IDPs)* which are particles from comets,        asteroids, and other bodies that are generally smaller than 0.1mm in diameter.        IDPs are small enough and decelerate quickly enough when falling into Earth's        atmosphere that their heating from atmospheric drag may be limited. Slightly        larger particles tend to completely melt, but may        survive their high-speed entry into the atmosphere and fall to Earth as *micrometeorites.*        IDPs and micrometeorites are collectively known as “cosmic dust“, and even        though these particles are tiny they make up the majority of        the mass of astromaterials which fall to Earth each year.

The Cosmic Dust Collections are        comprised of both IDPs and micrometeorites (MMs) (Figure 1). The collections        also include terrestrial dust, aluminum oxide spheres produced by solid rocket        motors, terrestrial biological debris such as pollen grains, and other tiny        particles. The NASA Cosmic Dust Collections have been active since 1981 and        include over 11,000 individual particles as well as whole collectors and        archived collection hardware. The collections currently include the Aircraft Collected Particle (ACP) collection of IDPs collected using        high-altitude aircraft and micrometeorites collected from the South Pole Water Well (SPWW). NASA continues to collect new        Cosmic Dust samples with high-altitude aircraft and Advanced Curation efforts        are underway to expand collection strategies to include high-altitude balloons        and other methods. To date, over 500 scientific papers and meeting abstracts have been produced from this effort, describing the scientific community's ongoing efforts to understand our Solar System through these tiny grains.

Figure 1: An interplanetary dust particle (IDP) from the Aircraft Collected Particle (ACP) collection. This        cosmic dust is fine-grained, contains carbon, primitive silicates and sulfides,        and is small – the scale bar at bottom center is 1 micrometer long. The second        image is the polished face of a micrometeorite from the South Pole Water Well        (SPWW) micrometeorite collection showing silicate grains and vesicles (the black spheroids). This micrometeorite is        rounded from passage through the Earth's atmosphere and is approximately 180        micrometers across. Notice the size difference between the two images – the        micrometeorite is approximately 70x the size of the IDP.

*Requesting Samples*

NASA maintains the Cosmic Dust Collections to provide carefully collected cosmic dust        to scientists around the world for research purposes. Samples may be requested        for scientific research any time throughout the year by contacting the Curator        with a written request. Details on how to select samples and submit the request        are available HERE. Contact        the Curator with questions or assistance in placing a request.

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