The fundamental point is that we ultimately are made of this stuff -- 'stardust' from the interstellar medium.

It's worth more than my house, so you can believe I'm being really careful.

If the particles are one micron (wide, or one-millionth of a meter), they'll make a track that is about 100 microns long.

We will throw in some calibration images that allow us to measure the volunteers' efficiency.

It's an idea that was born out of desperation.

These will be the very first contemporary interstellar dust grains ever brought back to Earth for study. Stardust is not only the first mission to return samples from a comet, it is the first sample return mission from the galaxy.