Interstellar Dust Instrumentation

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Scientific paper

Interstellar grains traversing the inner planetary system have been identified by the Ulysses dust detector. Space dust detectors on other missions confirmed this finding. Analysis of the Stardust collectors is under way to search for and analyze such exotic grains. Interstellar dust particles can be detected and analyzed in the near-Earth space environment. New instrumentation has been developed to determine the origin of dust particles and their elemental composition. A Dust Telescope is a combination of a Dust Trajectory Sensor (DTS, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 79, 084501, 2008) together with a high mass resolution mass analyzer for the chemical composition of dust particles in space. Dust particles' trajectories are determined by the measurement of induced electric signals when a charged grain flies through a position sensitive electrode system. A modern DTS can measure dust particles as small as 0.2 micron in radius and dust speeds up to 100 km/s. Large area chemical analyzers of 0.1 m2 sensitive area have been tested at a dust accelerator and it was demonstrated that they have sufficient mass resolution to resolve ions with atomic mass number up to >100 (Earth, Moon and Planets, DOI: 10.1007/s11038-005-9040-z, 2005; Rev. Sci. Instrum. 78, 014501, 2007). The advanced Dust Telescope is capable of identifying interstellar and interplanetary grains, and measuring their mass, velocity vector, charge, elemental and isotopic compositions. An Active Dust Collector combines a DTS with an aerogel or other dust collector materials, e.g. like the ones used on the Stardust mission. The combination of a DTS with a dust collector provides not only individual trajectories of the collected particles but also their impact time and position on the collector which proves essential in finding collected sub-micron sized grains on the collector.

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