STARDUST@HOME IS FINALLY LAUNCHING!

[Phoenix2]

Got this in my email from Stardust....

We announce the launch of the Stardust@home project. Data will be available starting at 11 am Pacific Daylight Time (1800 GMT),
Tuesday, August 1, 2006.

To participate, please point your browser at:

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/


...and this from the Stardust site:


Latest News: July 31, 2006

The countdown has begun and we are ready to launch! After months of delays we are finally ready to begin our search for interstellar particles of dust trapped in the aerogel collector from NASA's Stardust mission!

The project will officially begin at 11:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time on August 1st, 2006. An email is being sent to all of our 115,000 pre-registrants to let them know that we are ready to go. All are welcome to participate whether you pre-registered or not. At 11:00 AM tomorrow this website will switch over to our newest version featuring testing and searching using our virtual microscope and real data.

 

[TallBill]

Would be cool to get in on this ground floor, but I'm just not a big fan of the space projects. Hopefully they can keep up with Wu's.

 

[Philippart]

but it isn't a Boinc project, right?

 

[RaySun2Be]

Nope, not a BOINC project. It's actually not automated. Volunteers sit and review "movies" of small sections of the aerogel using a virtual microscope (software), looking for intersteller particle tracks.

Since they have no pattern of an interstellar particle moving through the aerogel yet, they cannot use pattern recognition software (have to a pattern to match to 1st).

Seems interesting, but I have no time to sit and watch short movies of gel over and over. Although I would hope that once they (if at all) find a good image of one, they could use pattern recognition software.

Kind of reminds me of the old Count the Craters volunteer project from awhile back.

 

[Philippart]

it's fun, but due to unexpected high succes and traffic the project is temporary down