The Very Dust, Part 2

And hey, if you hear a little weirdness, little creak, little croak in my throat today that may very well be caused by dust.

we're talking about here. These are vaguely animal shaped accumulations of dust that one tends to find in hard to dust places and corners of a home or other interior space.

A frequent place you may find these is, of course, like under the bed, under and behind the dresser, places where dust can accumulate for extended periods of time without being noticed until you go in there looking for something, or going in for a more detailed dusting of the room, and you find something that has accumulated to the degree that it is kind of vaguely animal shaped.

the topic of dust. I didn't look in all of them, but I didn't look in a couple of them. And yeah, even in books devoted entirely to topics of topic of dust, you might not find much about them. So I suspect that I'm not alone in turning up a few leads. But there is some information out there. These accumulations have been known by different names. Again, this is not an exhaustive list, so let us know what you have come

to know them as. But in German tradition there are often referred to as wool mouse or as it means wool mouse, which I think is pretty good. You know, looks it actually looks more like a mouse than a rabbit, at least the ones I encounter.

Please be advised antiquated use of the term here. So with all that set up. In English tradition, they are some They were sometimes known as sluts wool. This was an antiquated use of that term that meant an unclean or slovenly person.

So you might find references to someone wearing a garment made of Beggar's velvet, but they're not using a garment made of dust bunnies.

I couldn't find any information about this being anything. This might be a more recent development where we want to apply all things cat to things in our house, and therefore think of it as a dust kitten, which certainly does sound cuter.

Not that I ever have any problem like touching the dust bunnies of only scooping up something behind a dresser that hasn't been moved in a while, but I also find that I regard it rather differently than when compared to dryer lint. Dryer lint always, to me, feels like a like a sacred and holy substance that must be removed from the machine. There's something kind of satisfying about removing dryer lint that, especially when it comes off in kind of like a clump or a patch, you know.

When you've got a young child who's like mobile, crawling around on the floor and kind of putting whatever in their mouth, then there's a sudden urgency to actually do something about all these little critters piling up in the corners.

standing like science textbook, kind of a situation. Also Formation of Cosmic dust Bunnies, an article published in two thousand and seven in the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science by Matthews at All. John Hermann brought together some of these sources for a twenty ten Gizmoto explainer, and there's also a two thousand and nine Esquire explainer. But everyone is pretty much circling around the same bundle of sources I find,

but still an insightful bundle of sources. So, whether we're dealing with the formation of stars or the formation of that epic dust bunny under your bed, it comes down to the process of accretion. Now we've talked about this in the show before, at least in the cosmic sense. In the household sense, however, we'd be talking about a very weak static electrical charge bringing together only the very fine particles of dust, because you're not dealing with like

a you know, a cosmic void scenario. This is happening under your bed. The rest of what's binding the dust bunny together, it comes seems to come down to entangled and matted fibers of the various components that make up the bunnies.

Nobody is to blame except maybe me. Now, that giz Moto explainer that I referenced earlier from Herman runs through basically all this, But I thought that he has had a really nice capper for the article, so I want to read a quote from it. There are other minor culprits like the cooking of fatty foods, which produces triglycerides that can attach to dust particles, making them stickier. All

the causes, though, share one characteristic. They're subtle. It's either electrostatic forces that are nearly impossible to measure, or air flows that are impossible to feel, or fat deposits that are unavoidable and unnoticeable byproducts of preparing. Basically any delicious food actually make that two characteristics. Without dust, they can't exist,

So get cleaning. This is a very I thought, very essential to note the airflow aspect of this, because I think that's another thing you can observe in your home. It's not only the places where dust isn't easily observed, but also sort of the corners where like sweeping doors and human traffic or pet traffic will sort of subtly push everything together as well.

Solar system because of its speed and trajectory. So, your standard asteroid or comet will will orbit our Sun in a loop, and it might be a very elongated loop, or it might be at a kind of tilted angle, and its speed will tend to change as it goes around this irregular orbit. Maybe it'll get faster as it swings around the Sun and then slow down as it

gets farther away from the Sun in that loop. But instead of orbiting our Sun in a loop, this object entered the Solar System going extremely fast angle nearly perpendicular to the orbital plane of the planets. So if you picture the planet circling the Sun on a basically flat disc, could this object hit the disc from the top and then had its path sharply bent around by the gravity of the Sun, and then continued on a course taking

it straight back out of the Solar System forever. And the decisive factor showing that it was not from here and would not be returning was speed. It had what might be called a hyperbolic velocity, enough speed that its path around the Sun if you zoom out, was clearly not the tight end of an oval shape, but was closer to a V shaped corner in a linear path, in.

that this kind of thing might happen a lot. It's just that Omumua was the first one we happened to see it happened to catch now. Of course, one corner of the Internet got very excited because, of course some people thought it was aliens, right, this is an alien

probe or a techno signature of some kind. We looked into these claims back in the day when people were first publicizing them, and our judgment was that, you know, there's nothing about Omumo that requires that conclusion, though it did have some very odd and interesting features that require some explanation. One of these features was its apparent shape.

Omuamua seems to be shaped like almost nothing else we know of in our solar system, and to be clear, this shape is something we have to infer not able to resolve an image of Omumua's shape directly. It's not like we could zoom in close enough with a telescope to see it like these pictures of asteroids we get from like a probe that approaches really close, like the image we got of the asteroid Binu from the Osiris REX mission. You know that is a direct camera image

that we could get because we were close. Omuamua is a point like source of light. It was far away and very small. But by analyzing what's called a light curve, which is the pattern of time based variations in the intensity of light reflected off of the object, scientists can put together a likely model or multiple likely models of its shape, and according to what I've read, the best models of its shape include either a sort of tumbling

elongated cigar shape or a tumbling flat disc. NASA's overview of the object still leans toward the cigar shape, saying that it is probably about four hundred meters long and about ten times as long as it is wide, and there's still some variation in those estimates. Like other sources I've looked at the put the guess at it being more like two hundred meters long and having a slightly different length to with ratio. So there was a lot

of speculation about what this object is. Is it we know it comes from outside the Solar System, but is it an interstellar asteroid? Is it a rogue comet from another star? Is it a shard of a planet that got smashed to pieces? What is it another strange feature of Muamua that seems to contribute to these the search for an explanation as to its nature is its seemingly anomalous acceleration. The object was caught going slightly faster and faster as it moved away from the Sun, which is

characteristic of comets rather than asteroids. Comets, which have some rock and dust content but are also largely made of ice, can accelerate beyond the speed that would be predicted by gravity alone by outgassing. When they get close to the Sun. Comets heat up and the ice starts to melt. The ice and the volatiles melt and they shoot out into space, and this throwing of water and other volatiles into space gives the comet an equal and opposite propulsive nudge, increasing

its speed. Omuama behaved basically as if it were receiving this kind of cometary speed boost as it was flying away from its closest brush with the Sun. But there's a problem. When comets melt and outgas like this, we

can see it. They show a cometary tail, and Omuamua did not show a cometary tail, and so this, by the way, was one of the arguments of the people claiming that it was aliens, that this strange combination of observations showed that the object was an alien techno signature, basically a vehicle based on the principle of a solar sale. And we again, we looked at that claim in more depth years ago. Look up that episode to learn more

if you want. But we sort of agreed with the skeptics that there's no reason to jump to the conclusion of aliens yet. Maybe it's just a natural object with some unusual features.

in the way we know? What if it is a dust bunny from another star?

subject of much debate. We propose that Omuamua's properties could be explained as those of a fractal dust aggregate. Parentheses, a dust bunny formed in the inner coma of a fragmenting exo ort cloud comet. So this would be a comet coming from the sort of sphere of objects surrounding another star, like the Sun's ort cloud. The authors go on, such fragments could serve as accretion sites by accumulating dust particles,

resulting in the formation of a fractal aggregate. The fractal aggregate eventually breaks off from the fragment due to hydrodynamic stress. With their low density and tenuously bound orbits. Most of these cometary fractal aggregates are then ejected into interstellar space by radiation pressure. So for some more explanation on this that would make better sense to a non specialist, I came across an article in Popular Science which included illuminating

quotes from some of the authors of this paper. So this article is called Omuamua isn't aliens, but it may not be an asteroid either. This was by Charlie Wood

So according to this article. In February twenty nineteen, a Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer named Amaya Moro Martin suggested that the explanation for Omuamua's weird acceleration was perhaps that it was unusually light weight, so less like an asteroid, less like a space rock, and more like a space feather, and this would make it possible for a natural object to function more like a light sale to be significantly sped up by radiation pressure from the sun. The sunlight

giving it a push. Scientists investigating this idea referred to the model as a fractal aggregate. So aggregate, of course means you know, a collection of smaller things. In the words of the article, quote a fluffy conglomeration of dust and ice grains, And the fractal part of that name refers to a porous structure that repeats at different levels of resolution. So if you zoom in or zoom out, you would see similar patterns of holes and gaps in

this structure. Irich Fleckoy, a physicist at the University of Oslo who was one of the authors of the dust Bunny paper, said to Popular Science for this article quote, I think if you hit this thing, it would be a little bit like hitting a spider web.

fact about Omuamua that didn't come up earlier. Apparently there was a slowing of its rotation as it traveled, and the authors said that this fit well with the fact that solar radiation pressure can exert an uneven push on a rotating object with like some parts of an object getting more of a push from the solar radiation than others, so, for example, it pushes more on parts that are highly reflective. So it's possible that radiation pressure could help explain the

change into Inomumua's tumbling or rotation pattern. If so, radiation pressure from the Sun could also be responsible for its acceleration. Another question is could a very very low density, porous fractal object like a dust bunny survive tumbling through space

without being ripped apart. The authors model this and they conclude yes, it can, but the model does have challenges, and the Popular Science article quotes an astrophysicist at Cambridge named Roman Rafikov who points out that in order for the dust bunny model to work to have the right amount of acceleration due to radiation pressure, it would have to be amazingly low density, about one hundred times less dense than air at sea level on Earth, and Rafikov

points out that this is even less dense than human engineered aerogels, which are pecifically created to be as low density as possible. So, Rafikov says in the article quote how do you reconstruct this in interstellar space? Like, how does something like that form? How does it stay intact? However, despite Rafikov's skepticism of what this model would require, he also said at the time of the article, at least in twenty nineteen, that he couldn't come up with a

better explanation. But that doesn't mean there isn't one. So the dust bunny model I love it. It is a few years old now, and it's not the only proposal to reconcile umumu as weird acceleration with its lack of the normal features associated with commentary outgassing. For example, there was a paper I came across that was published in Nature last year in twenty twenty three by astronomers Jennifer Bergner and Darryl Seligman called acceleration of Umumua from radiolytically

produced H two in H two O ice. And these authors put together a model that could explain the acceleration of omuumua without the normally visible cometary tale by saying that it is due to its unique life history, and because of this life history, it was simply venting a different kind of volatile than what you'd see in a

normal local comet from our Solar System. So the authors say, quote here, we report that the acceleration of Omuumua is due to the release of entrapped molecular hydrogen that formed through energetic processing of an H two zero rich icy body. In this model, Omumoua began as an icy planetesimal that was irradiated at low temperatures by cosmic rays during its interstellar journey and experienced warming during its passage through the

Solar System. So the idea is, this icy object is out in the interstellar medium between star systems for ages and ages, and the whole time it is just getting cooked. It is getting bombarded by cosmic radiation. This radiation splits apart the H two O molecules in the ice of this object and creates H two hydrogen gas trapped within

the ice. Then when it gets close to the Sun, the ice melts a bit and releases this hydrogen gas, which provides the acceleration, but not the same kind of tail you would see from the regular venting of pure intact H two O and dust and in a regular comet. So just wanted to throw that out there, because there are multiple possible non aliens explanations. Maybe one day we will have a more conclusive model, but I think for now we still don't know for sure what this object was.

I do kind of hope it was a dust bunny. But yeah, all interesting ideas.

and wasted space in a room where they typically accumulate. So, in other words, think of it this way. Most of us tend to approach this by all right, we know where the dust accumulates. Let's go dust there let's go sweet there. But you might also think, well, what is this space in my house for the only thing it's good for is accumulating dust and dust bunnies. I should just seal that off.

The various images that there are historic examples, but then also some people are still producing these for you know, homes that want that kind of like older touch, that kind of Victorian touch. And so in this picture, Joe, you can see in the corner of the stairs, the little corner there is just capped off, so the dust cannot accumulate there.

don't remember ever having seen one before. Maybe they're just easy to miss. I'm not sure they're look familiar to me. Yeah, so I'm now I'm on the lookout for them. But I've at least thus far in my life. I feel like I've not been paying enough attention.

who live nineteen thirty through two thousand and nine. The Lovecraft connection, of course, would seem to line up with the timeline of dust corners in particular, but Wiles is in general describing the kind of architectural war on filth that rises with acceptance of germ theory, impacting various aspects of design, and then also like modernist thought and also weird fiction of the era.

right angles. But as the understanding of nature changes to include like smaller and smaller organisms, maybe that also signals a concurrent change in how architecture expresses that desire to dominate.

and where's the dust accumulating? What can be done architecturally stylistically to combat this enemy, So Wiles writes the following quote. Once the home was rid of moldings, fabrics, and chotsika's, the sanitary maniac suspicion fell on the dust harboring corner itself. In the eighteen eighties, the dust corner was introduced, a brass triangle that could be tacked at the meeting point of two walls and the floor, or the corners of a flight of stairs, so dirt couldn't gather and sweeping

would be easier. But he of course points out that dust corners were a clumsy and imperfect solution in a modernist yearning for the true cornerless room, a term the cornerless room that became associated with breaks from reality, So the padded room of a sanitarium was sometimes referred to as a cornerless room, he writes, quote, in the literature of the first half of the twentieth century, there are references to the cornerless room as an ultimate convenience in

a modern home. So it's suddenly it's like boat. We're kind of having it both ways. It's like this thing we're yearning for, but also this thing that is that it might be unnatural but also might be just the desired form of everything. And then the corner sometimes in some uses, becomes a gateway to cosmic horror and madness.

One literary example that he draws on is a short story not by HP Lovecraft, but by one of his protegees, another author of the same time period that he was in communication with, a gentleman by the name of Frank A. Belknup Long, and the work in question is The Houlms of Tendalos. So this was a story that I was originally just going to reference, but then I found like a ninety nine cent collection of this author's work. I

picked it up, I started reading. I haven't finished it yet as of this recording, but it's essentially one of these sort of gentleman's study kind of setups where you have two scholarly individuals. It is almost impossible for me not to picture them as being played by Peter Cushing

and Christopher Lee, and one of them. This is like a ninth late nineteen thirty story, I believe, and the main character is like I have decided to take drugs and travel through time, and his friend is like, oh, I don't think you should do that, and he's like, no, I haven't all worked out, and he's like, okay, fine, I will. I will be here to help you into Yeah, that's the setup, but it eventually involves terrifying, vaguely hound like entities from another dimension that enter into our world

through geometric corners. Here's the here's a quick line from it. Quote, The foul expresses itself through angles, the pure through curves. Man, the pure part of him is descended from a curve. So yeah, this idea that, like the angle is so unnatural that this becomes the nexus point through which these terrifying creatures can appear at any moment and hunt one down.

with the spreading of germs per se. But of course we do know that there is some correlation with dust and dust mites, which, as we talked about it in the last episode, are the number one source of allergic reactions in human beings worldwide.

clogged up with everything else. But it reminds me a little bit of during the early days of the pandemic, in particular, when suddenly there's a lot more focus on, say, door knobs and the cleanliness of door knobs. That was something that not everyone was ignorant of prior, but it suddenly became a much bigger thing, and then.

but we'd love for everyone to write in. If you have a first and foremost more information about what you call a dust bunny, from whatever background you have, or whatever you've learned in your travels or your conversations, let us know. We'd love to hear from you. If you have additional thoughts on cosmic dust, cosmic horror corners, the hounds of tendlos, whatever you have right in, we'd love

to hear it. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Listener mail on Mondays a short form episode on Wednesdays and on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.