Origin Of Cosmic Dust That Lands On Earth Discovered. ScienceDaily ( Sep. 2, 2008 )  "The study’s author, Dr Mathew Genge, from Imperial College London’s Department
 of Earth Science and Engineering, has trekked across the globe collecting cosmic dust.
 He says: “There are hundreds of billions of extraterrestrial dust particles falling though
 our skies. This abundant resource is important since these tiny pieces of rock allow us
 to study distant objects in our solar system without the multi-billion dollar price tag of
 expensive missions.”"  
Cosmic Dust in Ice Cores Sheds Light on Earth's Past Climate. The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory news (July 28, 2006)  "The scientists collected particulate matter from the EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) ice core
 and measured the concentration of helium-3 (3He), a rare isotope that is plentiful in the sun's solar wind and is carried
 to Earth imbedded in cosmic dust particles measuring just a few thousandths of a millimeter in diameter. These dust
 particles carry their exotic helium load to the Earth’s surface where they are preserved in the snow and ice of the polar
 ice caps, among other places.
 Because ice cores from the polar caps provide a high-resolution temporal record of the past, the researchers were able
 to measure fine variations in the rate of cosmic dust accumulation between glacial and interglacial periods as well as the
 helium isotope characteristics of these rare particles. They found that the accumulation of cosmic dust did not change 
 appreciably as the Earth emerged from the last great Ice Age and entered the current warm period, a fact that is likely
 to bolster the use of cosmic dust measuring techniques in future climate studies."