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Discovery of non-random spatial distribution of impacts
in the Stardust cometary collector.
Westphal A. J., Bastien R. K., Borg J., Bridges J., Brownlee
D. E., Burchell M. J., Cheng A. F., Clark B. C., Djouadi Z., Floss C.,
Franchi I., Gainsforth Z., Graham G., Green S. F., Heck P.R., Horanyi
M., Hoppe P., Hörz F. P., Huth J., Kearsley A., Leroux H., Marhas
K., Nakamura-Messenger K., Sandford S. A., See T. H., Stadermann F. J.,
Teslich N. E., Tsitrin S., Warren J. L., Wozniakiewicz P. J., and
Zolensky M. E. (2008)
Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 43(1/2), 415-429.
ABSTRACT
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.
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