Space dust rains on Earth constantly, but because of its microscopic size we never knew exactly how much. AmazeLab’s Johana Restrepo has more.
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00:00 Space dust rains on Earth constantly, but because of its microscopic size, we never
00:09 knew exactly how much.
00:11 These micrometeorites are a fraction of a millimeter and are shed like dander from passing
00:17 comets and asteroids.
00:19 Earth's atmosphere is filled with all kinds of dust, in fact, according to Science Alert,
00:25 there is about 17 million metric tons of dust blowing around our planet at any given time.
00:32 To minimize the background dust, researchers went to Antarctica and spent 20 years collecting
00:37 samples there and found that there are about 5,200 tons of micrometeorites smaller than
00:45 0.7 millimeters coming from outer space every year.
00:49 The team also wanted to know the origin of the dust coming in and found that 80% of the
00:54 samples they collected were from comets that passed nearby.
00:58 The total mass of cosmic dust before entering our atmosphere is around 15,000 tons.
01:04 While they aren't sure why these numbers don't add up, they think it may be due to
01:08 the fact that we aren't able to detect all of the dust coming in and dust may be removed
01:14 during entry.
01:15 The third option is that there may be significantly less dust in space than we think.
01:22 Researchers believe if they can figure out the reason why, they may be able to detect
01:26 how water molecules and carbon entered Earth, which would provide clues about life itself.
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