Cosmic Dust and the Universe – It’s More Amazing Than You Thought

by Jack

From dust to dust. . .

You’re probably dusting your home at least once a week, because if it goes much longer you start to notice it visible on any smooth surface. And this accumulation of dust is going on all over the planet. Okay, I admit, dust may not sound like a sexy subject, but stay with me on this, I think you’re going to enjoy the trip.

The accumulation of dust inside your home is one thing, but did you ever stop to consider the earth as your home and how much dust falls on it? Probably not, but it’s interesting to know that extra terrestrial dust (space dust) falls on the earth, and the average seems to be about 80 tons of the stuff every day. Imagine how much dust must fall on the earth in a year or a hundred years or a million. So, the earth is gaining weight, so what?

This accumulation of tiny particles tells us space is far from a vast empty void, pierced by the occasional meteorite. Imagine then what the abrasion on a spacecraft would be when traveling close to the speed of light! In theory, given enough time and distance, the hull would be worn down by a sandblasting effect. When we get to that level keeping the spacecraft whole is going to be a challenge.

But, the cosmic dust tells us more. At one time the universe must have been a pretty messy place, with comets, asteroids, meteorites and gases all over, clumping and banging into each other. Over time the accidental collisions of debris formed larger objects and eventually their size began to attract nearby orbiting objects. The larger these objects grew the more they attracted, almost like a celestial vacuum cleaner, until there were not small objects in their immediate area and because they were large enough to have their own gravity, this accumulation process reached out as far as their magnetic-like field was strong. Over billions of years spheres were formed and became planets. A sphere is a natural shape that occurs from an object with it’s own gravity field and a weight heavy enough to cause compression and because of spin that spreads out the accumulating particles more or less equally.

You may wonder, why do planets spin? This goes back to how they were formed at the molecular level. Scientist call this process angular momentum. We see this every time you flush the toilet or drain the sink, the water begins to rotate toward the center. Same thing happens in space, as particals attach to form large objects, but of course a much larger scale. There’s a lot more to it, but I am writing a blog article, not a research paper, so this simple explanation will have to suffice for now or you could visit http://www.geek.com/science/geek-answers-why-do-all-planets-rotate-and-orbit-in-the-same-direction-1564529/.

And now for the kicker! In millions of years, with all the debris that has hit earth not one item has been composed of elements that do not exist on earth, least none that we’ve discovered. This strongly hints at a common origin of everything. The universe as we know it appears to be constantly expanding from a central point and it’s still accelerating and growing. But, scientist theorize as some point the expansion will slow to stop and the reverse process will begin. It will continue until there is one massive sphere beyond our comprehension to even imagine and then it will collapse into itself forming pressures so great that eventually it explodes and it all starts over again…yeah, the big bang. It takes about 97,880,014,985,012,135,889,000,040,000,000,000,000 duotrigintillion years for this to happen, but this is but the blink of an eye in the scope of eternity. Don’t believe me? Wait around and find out, but don’t forget to dust, it’s important.