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Determining the elemental and isotopic makeup of
cosmic dust from residues in impact craters: preparation for
the ISPE.
Stadermann F. J. and Floss C. (2008)
71st Meteoritical Society Meeting, Abstract #5105.
ABSTRACT
The Stardust mission used both aerogel tiles and Al foils
to gather dust from the coma of comet Wild 2. Although
hypervelocity impacts in solid metal targets are generally
highly disruptive, the residues were found to preserve
significant portions of the original projectile material.
Analyses of crater residues led to the identification of
several surviving presolar grains among the cometary
samples. A second collector on the Stardust spacecraft was
used to capture possible contemporary interstellar dust
traversing the solar system. The study of these interstellar
samples is analytically highly challenging and the upcoming
preliminary examination (ISPE) will initially consist only
of nondestructive surveys. Previously, we have used the
Auger spectrometer and the NanoSIMS for the elemental and
isotopic characterization of cometary dust residues at high
spatial resolution. We have now tested various analytical
approaches for the ISPE.
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