Final Reports of the Stardust ISPE: Seven Probable Interstellar Dust ParticlesThe Stardust spacecraft carried the first spaceborne collector specifically designed to capture and return a sample of contemporary interstellar dust to terrestrial laboratories for analysis [1]. The collector was exposed to the interstellar dust stream in two periods in 2000 and 2002 with a total exposure of approximately 1.8 10(exp 6) square meters sec. Approximately 85% of the collector consisted of aerogel, and the remainder consisted of Al foils. The Stardust Interstellar Preliminary Examination (ISPE) was a consortiumbased effort to characterize the collection in sufficient detail to enable future investigators to make informed sample requests. Among the questions to be answered were these: How many impacts are consistent in their characteristics with interstellar dust, with interplanetary dust, and with secondary ejecta from impacts on the spacecraft? Are the materials amorphous or crystalline? Are organics detectable? An additional goal of the ISPE was to develop or refine the techniques for preparation, analysis, and curation of these tiny samples, expected to be approximately 1 picogram or smaller, roughly three orders of magnitude smaller in mass than the samples in other small particle collections in NASA's collections - the cometary samples returned by Stardust, and the collection of Interplanetary Dust Particles collected in the stratosphere.
Document ID
20140006553
Acquisition Source
Johnson Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Allen, Carlton (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Sans Tresseras, Juan-Angel (NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Westphal, Andrew J. (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Stroud, Rhonda M. (Naval Research Lab. Washington, DC, United States)
Bechtel, Hans A. (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Brenker, Frank E. (Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Univ. Frankfurt am Main, Germany)
Butterworth, Anna L. (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Flynn, George J. (State Univ. of New York Plattsburgh, NY, United States)
Frank, David R. (Jacobs Technologies Engineering Science Contract Group Houston, TX, United States)
Gainsforth, Zack (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Hillier, Jon K. (Heidelberg Univ. Heidelberg, Germany)
Postberg, Frank (Heidelberg Univ. Heidelberg, Germany)
Simionovici, Alexandre S. (Grenoble Univ. France)
Sterken, Veerle J. (Technische Hochschule Stuttgart, Germany)
Anderson, David (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Ansari, Asna (Field Museum of Natural History Chicago, IL, United States)
Bajt, Sasa (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron Hamburg, Germany)
Bastien, Ron K. (Jacobs Technologies Engineering Science Contract Group Houston, TX, United States)
Bassim, Nabil (Naval Research Lab. Washington, DC, United States)
Bridges, John (Leicester Univ. United Kingdom)
Brownlee, Donald E. (Washington Univ. Seattle, WA, United States)
Burchell, Mark (Kent Univ. Canterbury, United Kingdom)
Burghammer, Manfred (Ghent Univ. Belgium)
Changela, Hitesh (New Mexico Univ. Albuquerque, NM, United States)
Cloetens, Peter (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility Grenoble, France)
Davis, Andrew M. (Chicago Univ. Chicago, IL, United States)
Doll, Ryan (Washington Univ. Saint Louis, MO, United States)
Floss, Christine (Washington Univ. Saint Louis, MO, United States)