Capture-processing of Stardust cometary particles: Comparison of melted and unmelted particles from Type B impact tracks

Mathematics – Logic

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Particles from the Jupiter family comet, Wild 2, were collected by the NASA Stardust spacecraft, at an encounter speed of 6.1 km/s, using aerogel capture media and subsequently returned to Earth for laboratory analyses [1]. The results of analyses of the cometary particles have challenged us to reassess and modify models of early solar system processes and the formation of comets. Indeed, the minerals identified in the Wild 2 dust to date are an unequilibrated mixture of minerals exhibiting a range of possible formation conditions [2,3]. This requires that materials from a wide cross-section of the protosolar nebula were mixed into the region of space where comet Wild 2 formed [e.g., 2,3]. Recent work by Ishii et al. (2008) [4] indicates that the composition, mineralogy, and crystallography of Stardust cometary samples are not consistent with chondritic porous interplanetary dust particles (CP-IDPs), rather they resemble asteroidal dust. Much of this work was done on terminal particles, which penetrated deepest into the aerogel and are the least altered of the samples. Material deposited along the impact tracks was moderately to significantly processed by the capture itself, and thus is more difficult to interpret. However, by understanding the effects of aerogel capture on the particles, through laboratory experiments [e.g., 5 and references therein], and physical [6], compositional and mineralogical [7,8] analyses of the Stardust impact tracks, we can interpret how the current materials relate to the original pre-capture particles. This information is critical for the comparison of Wild 2 particles with IDP collections, because the pre-capture composition of the particles is not necessarily equal to that of just the terminal particles. Indeed, the composition of Wild 2 material is the sum of compositions of terminal particles and materials deposited along the tracks. The purpose of our study is to compare and contrast capture-melted and terminal particles within the context of the conditions during capture in aerogel, in order to derive their pre-capture characteristics.

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