'Alien Dust' Has Travelled 45,000 MPH Just To Be With Us

(Photo : John Bradley) Researchers have found that interplanetary dust particles, called IDPs, could transport water and organics to the Earth and other Earth-like planets.

Cassini has collected million of cosmic particles. Scientists said that 36 of the particles were special enough to be considered alien dust grains. This means that those dust particles came from interstellar space. Found on Saturn, the question now is, how did they even get there?

In their report published in the journal of Science, scientists noted that the dust particles traveled at a rate of 45,000 mph. That speed is so fast that the particles can avoid being imprisoned by the sun's gravitational pull.

Scientists also came across alien dust in our solar system back in the 1990s. The study's lead researcher Nicolas Altobelli noted, "From that discovery, we always hoped we would be able to detect these interstellar interlopers at Saturn with Cassini. We knew that if we looked in the right direction, we should find them".

The information gathered by the Cassini spacecraft allowed the scientists to deduce that the dust collected was made from rock-forming elements like magnesium, silicon, iron and calcium.

According to Gizmodo, "Scientists believe these unusual grains (and they were only able to get 36 of them) come from interstellar space-the huge swaths of relative emptiness between star systems. Unlike the majority of particles around Saturn, which are icy, Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer determined that these were composed of minerals like silicon, calcium, and iron."

According to CSMonitor News, the alien dust has traveled between stars before arriving at the solar system.

"The CDA [cosmic dust analyster] takes measurements when the dust particles impact the collection surface inside the instrument and become vaporized. As a result, a puff of plasma is created, which is extensively measured and analyzed," noted NASA.

"Most scientists had expected dust populations with different compositions, corresponding to the different processes of origin in atmospheres of dying stars," said Dr. Frank Postberg, a Heisenberg grant scientist at the Institute for Earth Sciences, said in a press release. "Our data tells a completely different story."