Now that scientists are working to analyze cometary samples from NASA's Stardust mission, the general public will soon have a chance to lend a hand. Known as Stardust@Home, the public outreach program will allow participants to view "movies" through a virtual microscope on the Web to search for tiny interstellar dust grains. The program was originally scheduled to start March 1 but other mission priorities have delayed the start by at least a month, said Andrew Westphal, program director at the Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. The Stardust mission, which landed in Utah's west desert in January, collected bits of a comet as well as dust particles that came from other solar systems. Scientists believe the comet particles are left over from the earliest days of our solar system. Details from the mission could answer questions about the solar system's origins. Participants will use an on-line virtual microscope to examine images recorded by an actual microscope to look for hints that interstellar dust landed in the collector material. More information on the program is available at stardustathome.ssl.berkeley .edu. - Greg Lavine