The Design, Construction, and Flight of a High Altitude Particle Collector

Scientists have discovered that each year over 110 million metric tons of dust are transported from Africa and Asia to the United States through the upper atmosphere. Among these dust particles are many other microorganism such as pollen, plant spores, plant propagules (seeds), bacteria, and viruses. The fact that these microbes can travel such great distances through the atmosphere makes it relevant to human health, spread of crop diseases, and the global distribution of plants. It takes only one viable microbe or plant propagule to establish an organism in a location in which it never previously existed. It is this understanding of the impact of globally spread microorganisms that makes this a relevant scientific problem. The purpose of this project was to design and construct a device capable of sampling airborne microorganisms at 9 to 10 kilometers altitude using weather balloons in order to better understand the impact of transcontinental dispersion. The collector prototype has been constructed and it has been tested in the laboratory, but it has not yet been tested in the field