The Strata-1 experiment on small body regolith segregation

Fries, M.; Abell, P. A.; Brisset, Julie; Britt, D. T.; Colwell, Joshua; Dove, Adrienne; Durda, Dan; Graham, Lee; Hartzell, C. M.; Hrovat, Kenneth; John, Kristen K.; Karrer, Dakotah; Leonard, Matthew J.; Love, S. G.; Morgan, Joseph A.; Poppin, Jayme N.; Rodriguez, Vincent; Sánchez-Lana, Paul; Scheeres, Daniel J.; Whizin, Akbar

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2017.10.025

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…; Fries et al. ). From a scientific standpoint, simulated asteroid materials can be used to investigate (1) regolith behavior in microgravity, including cohesion and sorting; (2) impact cratering processes, using simulants as a target for projectiles; (3) thermal cycling effects on asteroid material strength properties.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Simulated asteroid materials based on carbonaceous chondrite mineralogies

Britt

Cannon

Hanna

et al. 2019

Meteorit & Planetary Scien

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A set of high‐fidelity simulated asteroid materials, or simulants, was developed based on the mineralogy of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Three varieties of simulant were developed based on CI1 chondrites (typified by Orgueil), CM2 chondrites (typified by Murchison), and CR2/3 chondrites (multiple samples). The simulants were designed to replicate the mineralogy and physical properties of the corresponding meteorites and anticipated asteroid surface materials as closely as is reasonably possible for bulk amounts. The simulants can be made in different physical forms ranging from larger cobbles to fine‐grained regolith. We analyzed simulant prototypes using scanning electron microscopy, X‐ray fluorescence, reflectance spectroscopy at ambient conditions and in vacuum, thermal emission spectroscopy in a simulated asteroid environment chamber, and combined thermogravimetry and evolved gas analysis. Most measured properties compare favorably to the reference meteorites and therefore to predicted volatile‐rich asteroid surface materials, including boulders, cobbles, and fine‐grained soils. However, there were also discrepancies, and mistakes were made in the original mineral formulations that will be updated in the future. The asteroid simulants are available to the community from the nonprofit Exolith Lab at UCF, and the mineral recipes are freely published for other groups to reproduce and modify as they see fit.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Simulated asteroid materials based on carbonaceous chondrite mineralogies

Britt

Cannon

Hanna

et al. 2019

Meteorit & Planetary Scien

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Size segregation due to the 'Brazil nut' effect is proposed as one mechanism. According to this scenario, small impacts induce vibrations within the parent body, which then lead to a size sorting effect within the regolith bed (Schräpler et al 2015;Fries et al 2018;Güttler et al 2013). Impacts of small particles and the resulting splash events are also treated as a mechanism that leads to size segregation (Shinbrot et al 2017).…”

Section: Late Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding planet formation using microgravity experiments

Wurm

Teiser

2021

Nat Rev Phys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2018, images were released of a planet being formed around the star PDS 70, offering a tantalizing glimpse into how planets come into being. However, many questions remain about how dust evolves into planets, and astrophysical observations are unable to provide all the answers. It is therefore necessary to perform experiments to reveal key details and, to avoid unwanted effects from the Earth's gravitational pull, it is often necessary to perform such experiments in microgravity platforms. This Review sketches current models of planet formation and describes the experiments needed to test the models.

show abstract

“…Experiments need to be carried out in droptowers (Sunday et al 2016), and in aeroplanes that perform a number of parabolic flights to emulate lower gravitational conditions (milli-g levels for tens of seconds are common) (Murdoch et al 2013a). In the best case scenario, experiments can be carried out in the International Space Station as this guarantees micro-gravity conditions for extended periods of time (Fries et al 2016;Fries et al 2018). The following sections in this paper will detail how this has been carried out, the caveats and main results.…”

Section: What Is Relevant?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The driving mechanism is no longer convection and percolation as on Earth, but rather the gradients in the fluctuation energy of the grains. Though not many experiments involving granular matter have been carried out to date in the ISS, the Strata-1 experiment (Fries et al 2016;Fries et al 2018) was the first to put different mixtures of grains in orbit for a long period of time. The samples ranged from spherical glass beads to glass shards, to crushed meteorite simulants and even a real crushed meteorite sample.…”

Section: Experiments In Microgravitymentioning

confidence: 99%