Laboratory simulation of cometary dust collection and analysis |
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| Authors: | N Pailer E Grün D Bahr D Lang |
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| Institution: | Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Postfach 10 39 80, 6900 Heidelberg-1, Federal Republic of Germany |
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| Abstract: | An experiment for the in situ analysis of cometary dust grains during a rendezvous mission to a comet consists of three elements: (1) Substrate preparation, i.e. cleaning of the substrates in order to reduce the background contamination, (2) dust collection and (3) chemical analysis. All three elements have been simulated in a laboratory experiment. Combined heat treatment (up to 200°C) and surface sputtering of the gold substrates by a glow discharge reduced the surface contamination of Na, Al and K by a factor of 1000 and that of all other contaminants below the detection threshold. During the sputtering of the substrates they acquired a surface roughness of ～5 μm, which improved their collection efficiency for dust particles. Dust particles were shot onto those substrates at speeds up to 200 m s?1.Chemical analysis using secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) provided information on elemental abundances, the molecular composition and isotopic ratios of selected elements even at a surface dust coverage of 10?2–10?4. Both technical details of the new equipment and results of the first investigation on target surface cleaning and SIMS analysis of dust particles will be reported. |
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