The Suborbital Particle Aggregation and Collision Experiment (SPACE): Studying the Collision Behavior of Submillimeter-Sized Dust Aggregates on the Suborbital Rocket Flight REXUS 12

摘要

The Suborbital Particle Aggregation and Collision Experiment (SPACE) is anovel approach to study the collision properties of submillimeter-sized, highlyporous dust aggregates. The experiment was designed, built and carried out toincrease our knowledge about the processes dominating the first phase of planetformation. During this phase, the growth of planetary precursors occurs byagglomeration of micrometer-sized dust grains into aggregates of at leastmillimeters to centimeters in size. However, the formation of larger bodiesfrom the so-formed building blocks is not yet fully understood. Recentnumerical models on dust growth lack a particular support by experimentalstudies in the size range of submillimeters, because these particles arepredicted to collide at very gentle relative velocities of below 1 cm/s thatcan only be achieved in a reduced-gravity environment. The SPACE experiment investigates the collision behavior of an ensemble ofsilicate-dust aggregates inside several evacuated glass containers which arebeing agitated by a shaker to induce the desired collisions at chosenvelocities. The dust aggregates are being observed by a high-speed camera,allowing for the determination of the collision properties of theprotoplanetary dust analog material. The data obtained from the suborbitalflight with the REXUS (Rocket Experiments for University Students) 12 rocketwill be directly implemented into a state-of-the-art dust growth and collisionmodel.