Light-Field Motion Tracking in Laboratory Studies of Planet Formation

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One of our key scientific drivers in the Astrochemistry group is to describe qualitatively and quantitatively the collisions that dominate the earlies states of icy planetesimal-formation, to answer how do planets form?We aim to be the first in the world to develop and exploit an experimental payload to address this challenge, taking advantage of the high-quality, medium-duration microgravity environments in sub-orbital flight, to study sub-cms collisions between ensembles of nm sized icy grains, forming um-mm sized fluffy ice aggregates, that stick to form cm sized icy pebble. Without these specific microgravity conditions, our particles sediment at the low velocities the aggregates fall apart or compact weight effects, and there is insufficient time to collide and aggregates all the particles.