Light-Field Motion Tracking in Laboratory Studies of Planet Formation

我们天体化学小组的关键科学驱动力之一是定性和定量地描述主导冰行星形成早期状态的碰撞，回答行星是如何形成的？我们的目标是成为世界上第一个开发和利用实验有效载荷来应对这一挑战的公司，利用亚轨道飞行中高质量、中等持续时间的微重力环境，研究纳米级冰粒之间的亚厘米碰撞，形成微米级的蓬松冰团聚体，这些冰团粘在一起形成厘米大小的冰卵石。如果没有这些特定的微重力条件，我们的颗粒以低速沉淀，聚集体解体或紧凑的重量效应，没有足够的时间碰撞和聚集所有的颗粒。

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.