Discovery of Non-random Spatial Distribution of Impacts in the Stardust Cometary Collector
- Author:
- Gainsforth, Zack
- Published:
- [2007].
- Physical Description:
- 1 electronic document
- Additional Creators:
- Cheng. Andrew F.
Clark, Benton C.
Bridges, John
Borg, Janet
Franchi, Ian
Brownlee, Donald E.
Horz, Friedrich
Westphal, Andrew J.
Floss, Christine
Djouadi, Zahia - Access Online:
- hdl.handle.net
- Restrictions on Access:
- Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available.
- Summary:
- We report the discovery that impacts in the Stardust cometary collector are not distributed randomly in the collecting media, but appear to be clustered on scales smaller than 10 cm. We also report the discovery of at least two populations of oblique tracks. We evaluated several hypotheses that could explain the observations. No hypothesis was consistent with all the observations, but the preponderance of evidence points toward at least one impact on the central Whipple shield of the spacecraft as the origin of both clustering and low-angle oblique tracks. High-angle oblique tracks unambiguously originate from a non-cometary impact on the spacecraft bus just forward of the collector.
- Collection:
- NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Collection.
- Note:
- Document ID: 20070011624.
- Terms of Use and Reproduction:
- Copyright, Distribution as joint owner in the copyright.
- Access Online:
- hdl.handle.net
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