Mission Question - orientation

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JOC
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:59 pm

Mission Question - orientation

Post by JOC »

Hi all,

I read through some of the mission description over at:
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/details.html
...and a highly recommended read it is. However, I might have missed this somewhere, but.... while the aerogel was exposed for collection, was the orientation of the collector allowed to change or was it kept fixed, in relation to the direction of the incoming interstellar material?

As a useful reminder, a previous quote from Anna Butterworth included:
"As to what we are expecting for the real dust tracks: the interstellar dust stream entering our solar system comes from one direction, but we don't know in advance what the exact spread of incident angles will be. Tracks made by interplanetary dust particles in the collector can come from any direction."
[emphasis is my addition][original thread here]

I'm curious to know, when we do begin to find the real-deal interstellar tracks, should we then expect to find all of them in generally the same trajectory (fixed collector orientation) or in random trajectories.

_________________________
PS One particularly noteworthy bit of info from the above links, and which might bear some wider repetition, is that [and anyone feel free to refine my paraphrasing]:
according to the team, the stardust is not expected to consist of just one particular type of dust of one particular size.

To explain previous observations, it's thought to very probably vary in several materials and to have various sizes:
So, the interesting stuff might include tracks from all of the following possibilities(and more?):
  • maybe some dust of ~0.01 micron size [compare this to the scale on the Focus Movies!]
    maybe some of ~0.1 micron
    maybe some of ~0.22 micron
    maybe some of ~10 microns
    maybe some of ~20 microns
    and others bigger or smaller?
It's just that I often asked myself, will the dust be big, or small, big track, or small track, etc,etc... well, the answer is "yes", ...it might be all of those things!!
Twinkle, twinkle, little dust!
How I wonder which to trust!
From stars above the world you fell!
Buried like treasure in aerogel.
JOC
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:59 pm

Post by JOC »

Anyone back after the weekend have info? :D
Twinkle, twinkle, little dust!
How I wonder which to trust!
From stars above the world you fell!
Buried like treasure in aerogel.
DustBuster
DustMod
Posts: 694
Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 8:12 pm
Location: Horsetown, USA

Post by DustBuster »

The only firm response we have been given on some of these subjects is "expect the unexpected".

The announcement Friday states that the top 100 candidates are being submitted for further examination. Hopefully, enough can be discovered from these samples to answer your questions- but there was no mention of a time frame due to the availability of equipment for this purpose.

Focus on!
No dessert for you- ONE MONTH!
fjgiie
DustMod
Posts: 1253
Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 8:47 am
Location: Hampton, SC, US

orientation of collector

Post by fjgiie »

Hi JOC,
More links for you:
Collector turned towards ISP stream:http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/tech/aerogel.html

others:
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/details.html

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/dust.html

http://www.planetary.org/programs/proje ... _dust.html

I could not find the link that mentioned aimed within 10 degrees, so we cannot say that yet, although I remember reading that I think. Looks like you have been reading more on this subject than I have. I need to be asking you the questions. :oops:

Thanks,
fjgiie
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