THERE’S A LOT OF SPACE DUST ON EARTH.

THERE’S A LOT OF SPACE DUST ON EARTH. The scope of the problem that Larson took on is shown by numbers. About 4000 tons of of dust land on earth each year—more than 10 tons a day. What Larsen was looking for was one extraterrestrial particle among billions of others. Most of the particles from space are no bigger than the width of a human hair. Knowing what to disregard and how to train other nonscientists to know what to disregard provides a way to identify some of the particles making up the 4000 tons a year that come from space. Broad quotes a scientist who works in this field who points out how much dust there is which can be studied once it has been identified:“Your car is covered with cosmic dust. We inhale this stuff. We eat it every time we eat lettuce.”