Cassini Has Detected Dust Grains From Outside The Solar System

Space





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Artistic impression of the ESA/NASA Cassini mission around Saturn. ESA/NASA

Interstellar space is mostly empty, but not as empty as you might think. There are clouds of interstellar dust – made of small particles from supernova explosions – and this dust comes into the Solar System as we move around the galaxy. The composition of this dust is mysterious, so the Cassini spacecraft around Saturn has been collecting it since 2004 to shed more light.