Hello again, Steve, and many thanks for your swift, and positive reply.
YES - (actually; YES!!!!!) - I am very, very interested in this, and your offer to participate is most appreciated.
In order for this to have the optimal scientific value, it is very important to (as best as we can) to separate the various samples, and be as specific as possible in the notes (what exactly that particular sample is). Just use the normal/common terminology (so other welders, in future references, understand).
Do you want me send you some small, clean snap seal plastic bags, a magnet (for picking up small particles), etc? Here's my private email address, just tell me if you want me to send this to you , and to what address. If you do not need this, here's my postal address: Jon Larsen, PO Box 5202 Majorstua, 0302 Oslo, Norway. Make sure you leave a return address, so at least I can send you some music in return.
Thank you very, much!!
Our Project Stardust was initiated last year, by yours truly, and is now a loosly connected bunch of scientists (geology/astronomy/chemistry) who in our free hours try to solve a mystery: micrometeorites are a fact (described from what they have found in the South Pole Water Well - in the ice layers from app year 800-1200, before industrialisation, and there are app 25 different types+-), and the calculated rate of fall on Earth (ground) is "one particle at 0,2 mm diameter, per square meter, per year". This is quite a lot, in sum at least 40 ton per year! Nevertheless, several of our industrial/human activities also create small ojects that look confusingly similar to micrometeorites - and welding and oxy fuel cutting torch products are the most similar. Because of this, scientists have never done research on the "spherules" found in industriel/urban areas, it has simply been too difficult to diffrenciate the one (extraterrestriel ojects) from the other (artefacts). Our project is about finding methodes - if possible - to separate these two. So far we have made a lot of new discoveries, and my personal hunch is that if we manage to separate the various objects you can provide, from the very similar extraterrestriel ones - then the road is open to us. And science get 40 tons of very, very interesting space material to study, each year! Practically for free.
We have a facebookpage about this (including a growing collection of photos!): Project Stardust - Jon Larsen, welcome to join us! You - the experts on these artefacts - leave comments!
At the moment there are none of us who are working against a PhD on this (I am the only one of us, actually, without one, and I do not care about that kind of things), but they will come, within a few years. This is cutting edge science, and a lot of disciplines will benefit from this; remember that nasa and Japan in 2010-11 alone, have spent billions of $ in order to get a few milligram of space dust from an asteroide back to Earth. In the future - maybe - one can just sweep up the same objects with a broom, or a magnet, from any pavement. And we'll learn a lot more about the beginning of the universe, and ultimately, who we are.
And re. temperature on the sun, etc: the micrometeorites are not created by the sun, it is vice versa: the sun was created by gravitational forces in the original cloud of dust that created our solar system. And later the planets, etc. The main part of the micrometeorites are dustparticles from this ancient, original cloud, older than our own solar system! And they still "rain" silently down upon us. It is their dramatic passage through our atmosphere which melt them, and - as the other guy pointed out - add the oxygen (which is not present in the sun). So when you see a falling star, you can think of it as a very similar process to the weldin/cutting torch: iron + oxygen at high temperature. The sparkling result is the same, the iron oxide FeO (II-iron), a mineral called wüstite, practically absent on Earth, but is found in a few meteorites, and is common in micrometeorites. And you, propably, see this every day.
Once again: thank you, Steve! And if other gentlemen out there want to participate with more samples from their welding/oxy fuel cutting torch debris, you are most welcome to join the party.
Sincerely yours,
PROJECT STARDUST
Jon Larsen
