Skip to main content

Laboratory simulation of impacts on aluminum foils of the Stardust spacecraft: Calibration of dust particle size from comet Wild-2

Kearsley, Anton T., Burchell, Mark J., Horz, Friedrich, Cole, Mike J., Schwandt, Craig S. (2006) Laboratory simulation of impacts on aluminum foils of the Stardust spacecraft: Calibration of dust particle size from comet Wild-2. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 41 (2). pp. 167-180. ISSN 1086-9379. (doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2006.tb00201.x) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:5063)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1945-5100.2006.tb00201...

Abstract

Metallic aluminum alloy foils exposed oil the forward, comet-facing surface of the aerogel tray oil the Stardust spacecraft are likely to have been impacted by the same cometary particle Population as the dedicated impact sensors and the aerogel collector. The ability of soft aluminum alloy to record hypervelocity impacts as bowl-shaped craters offers all opportunistic substrate for recognition of impacts by particles of a potentially wide size range. In contrast to impact surveys conducted oil samples from low Earth orbit, the simple encounter geometry for Stardust and Wild-2, with a known and constant spacecraft-particle relative velocity and effective surface-perpendicular impact trajectories, permits closely comparable simulation in laboratory experiments. For a detailed calibration program, we have selected a suite of spherical glass projectiles of uniform density and hardness characteristics, with well-documented particle size range from 10 mu m to nearly 100 mu m. Light gas gun buckshot firings of these particles at approximately 6 kill s(-1) onto samples of the same foil as employed on Stardust have yielded large numbers of craters. Scanning electron microscopy of both projectiles and impact features has allowed construction of a calibration plot, showing a linear relationship between impacting particle size and impact crater diameter. The close match between our experimental conditions and the Stardust mission encounter parameters should provide another opportunity to measure particle size distributions and Mixes close to the nucleus of Wild-2, independent of the active impact detector instruments aboard the Stardust spacecraft.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1111/j.1945-5100.2006.tb00201.x
Subjects: Q Science
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Mark Burchell
Date Deposited: 02 Sep 2008 13:18 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:43 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/5063 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Burchell, Mark J..

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2680-8943
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Cole, Mike J..

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.