Fundamental Physics: Physics of plasmas and solid/liquid dust particles

Astrophysics, Planetology
Cosmic dust

51st ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign

3 November 2009

G. Wurm ⁽¹⁾, T. Kelling ⁽¹⁾, J. Teiser ⁽¹⁾, T. Jankowski ⁽¹⁾, M. Lischper ⁽¹⁾, M. Tegeder ⁽¹⁾

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Dust particles are ejected from a dust bed if the dust bed is in a low pressure gaseous environment (mbar, 1/1000 normal atmospheric pressure) and is illuminated (GT-effect). The illumination establishes a temperature gradient within the dust bed and together with the low pressure this results in a dust lifting force. This lifting effect might trigger dust devils and/or dust storm on Mars. It is still a riddle how dust is lifted on Mars- even at high altitudes. The Martian atmosphere provides pressures of 1-10 mbar – here our effect works best. In protoplanetary disks, where planets form through dust sticking and accretion processes, dusty bodies near the star (mbar pressures) might be eroded through extensive dust ejection caused by our effect through the intense stellar radiation and hence might re-inject dust for planet formation. For both applications (Mars 0.37g, μg in protoplanetary disks), the gravitational dependency of the lifting forces must be known to estimate how strong the effect is.

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A rack was designed to study the dust ejections during a parabolic flight. Within an evacuated vacuum chamber (mbar, 1/1000 normal atmospheric pressure) a dust sample (JSC Mars 1A soil simulant) is placed and illuminated by a high power halogen lamp. The induced dust particle ejections are observed during all three g-phases (μg, 1g, 2g) and recorded.
An automatic data logging and recording system ensures the data collection. 3 operators are around the rack controlling the intensity of the light source, the pressure and the data collection as well as a device for reducing the cohesion between the individual dust particles.
The gravitational dependency of the ejections forces are reconstructed out of the collected data.

Besides scientific applications to Mars (dust devils and/or dust storms) and protoplanetary disks no direct industrial applications exist.


Please find the final report as attachment to this experiment record.

Natacha Callens (e-mail: natacha.callens@esa.int)