Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008epsc.conf..596k&link_type=abstract
European Planetary Science Congress 2008, Proceedings of the conference held 21-25 September, 2008 in Münster, Germany. Online a
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
In the early 1980ies a mission to intercept Halley's comet was announced. The Heidelberg dust group had started to develop a mass spectrometer for ions formed after the impact of a dust particle on a solid target. The design as a reflectron allowed a mass resolution of unity for atomic ions in the range 1 - 140 Da. Flown on 3 missions, as PIA on GIOTTO and as PUMA on VeGa 1+2, it was the first ever to return mass spectra of cometary dust particles. Due to the high impact speeds of 68 and 80 km/s, respectively, mostly atomic ions were registered and consequently neither detailed mineral composition nor the organic chemistry could be identified. It was, however, possible to show the intimate mixture of the organic and mineral components of each of the dust particles only a few microns in size. We found hints for a `light carbon' component, could identify chemical classes in the inorganic component, and signals pointing to the existence of very small <100 nm sized dust in Halley's atmosphere. After this initial opportunity a new mission, CRAF, came up, attempting a rendezvous with a comet nucleus. For this mission, the instrument CoMA, a time-of-flight secondaryion- mass-spectrometer was developed, for which we achieved a mass resolution of m/Δm ≈ 8000 @ m=120, using a pulsed 115In liquid metal ion source. Unfortunately the project was cancelled, before results could be obtained. Shortly after, an enlarged version of the PIA instrument was introduced into the STARDUST S/C to comet Wild-2. For the first time we measured also negative ions from dust impacts, and could identify quinone derivatives, a biologically important chemical compound class, in interstellar dust grains. The spectra of cometary grains were too complex for a detailed analysis due to the relatively low impact speed of 6.2 km/s. A twin instrument was flown on the CONTOUR spacecraft, which unfortunately exploded after launch. The last of the current steps is COSIMA, a modified CoMA instrument, for ROSETTA, which is on its way to comet Churyumov- Gerasimenko and will hopefully provide data from 2013 onwards. While in-situ mass spectrometry provides data on individual grains, other methods on other missions, including a sample return of cometary material, provide additional information and help to formulate new and more refined questions about comets, their nature, their physics and their chemistry.
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