Anthony J. Tuzzolino

Impact Features on Stardust: Implications for Comet 81P/Wild 2 Dust

Particles emanating from comet 81P/Wild 2 collided with the Stardust spacecraft at 6.1 kilometers per second, producing hypervelocity impact features on the collector surfaces that were returned to Earth. The morphologies of these surprisingly diverse features were created by particles varying from dense mineral grains to loosely bound, polymineralic aggregates ranging from tens of nanometers to hundreds of micrometers in size. The cumulative size distribution of Wild 2 dust is shallower than that of comet Halley, yet steeper than that of comet Grigg-Skjellerup.

The stardust dust flux monitor

Abstract The Stardust mission is a NASA spacecraft to be launched in February 1999. It will flyby cornet 81P/Wild-2 in December 2004, exposing aerogel samples capturing small particles as it does so. The aerogel will be returned to Earth in January 2006. The spacecraft is equipped with other sensors including a dust flux monitor. The dust flux monitor is a combination of low and high rate systems, a large area momentum sensor (LAMS) and PVDF sensors respectively, sensitive to different momentum ranges. This paper describes the dust flux monitor, including the laboratory calibration of the LAMS, modelling of the comets dust emission and predictions of the impact flux on the dust sensors during the comet flyby. The predicted rates are such that a relatively close flyby is feasible without saturating the detectors.