Experimental studies of ice grain ejection by massive gas flow from ice and implications to Comets, Triton and Mars

Laufer, D.; Bar‐Nun, A.; Pat-El, I.; Jacovi, Ronen

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2012.10.030

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Bar-Nun and Laufer (2003) have built a unique setup to produce cm-thick samples of porous gas-laden amorphous ice by repeatedly condensing water vapour onto cold-plate maintained at 80 K to produce 200 µm-thick layers of amorphous ice that are then scratched by a cold knife. The powder of 200 µm particles produced in this process is stored in a sample container that is cooled down to 80 K before it is used for experiments (Laufer et al, 2013). We plan to develop a setup in which large amounts of amorphous ice can be produced and also mixed with mineral and organic refractory dust.…”

Section: Amorphous Icementioning

confidence: 99%

Experimenting with Mixtures of Water Ice and Dust as Analogues for Icy Planetary Material

et al. 2019

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Due to its abundance and unique properties, water is a major actor in the formation and evolution of many planetary surfaces as well as a sensitive and reliable tracer of past geologic and climatic processes. Water ice is found in variable abundance at the surfaces of many Solar System objects, from the floor of permanently shadowed craters at the poles of Mercury to large fractions of the surfaces of several trans-Neptunian objects. With few exceptions, water is not found in pure form but associated to contaminants of various nature and concentration. These associations and the nature of the mixing and segregation processes that affect and control them are key for our understanding of some of the most important aspects of planetary evolution processes. The observation and characterization of water ice at the surface of Solar System objects is therefore among the primary scientific objectives of many space missions. The quantitative interpretation of remote sensing data in terms of surface composition and physical properties requires the use of complex physical models that rely on experimental data in two different ways. First, the models require as inputs the fundamental properties of the pure materials, such as the optical or dielectric constant. Second, the models can only be fully tested if their results are confronted to actual measurements performed on samples whose complexity comes close to the one encountered on natural planetary surfaces but which are nevertheless wellenough characterized to serve as reference. Such measurements are challenging as macroscopic ice-rich samples prepared as analogues of icy planetary surfaces tend to be unstable, the ice component being prone to metamorphism and phase change. The questions of the reproducibility of the samples and the relevance of the measurements are therefore critical. The Ice Laboratory at the University of Bern has been set up in 2010 to overcome some of these difficulties. We have developed protocols to prepare, store, handle and characterize various associations of ice with mineral and organics contaminants as analogues of different types of icy Solar System surfaces. The aims of this article are to present the context and background for our investigations, describe these protocols and associated hardware in a comprehensive way, provide quantitative characterization of the samples obtained using these protocols and summarize the main results obtained so far by experimenting with these samples. The current state and possible future evolutions of this project are then discussed in the context of the next generation of space missions to visit icy objects in the Solar System and longer term perspectives on future observations of protoplanetary discs and exoplanetary systems.

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Section: Amorphous Icementioning

confidence: 99%

Experimenting with Mixtures of Water Ice and Dust as Analogues for Icy Planetary Material

et al. 2019

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“…Bar-Nun et al 1987;Laufer et al 2013). In the case of 100 µm layer of frozen CO 2 covered by a 200 µm thick layer of amorphous ice, upon uniformly warming up the sample, ice grains and jets of gas were measured by a quadrupole mass filter (MS), at a msec time resolution; (2) Few cm thick gas laden amorphous ice layers were formed in a one of its kind machine (Bar-Nun et al 2003).…”

Section: Experimental Procedures and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

New experimental studies of ice grain ejection by massive gas flow, implications to comets, Enceladus, Triton and Mars

Bar‐Nun

Laufer

Jacovi

et al. 2012

EAS Publications Series

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“…These plumes are interpreted to be consequence of geyser-like activity, which could be powered by insulation-driven heating of the nitrogen cap (Soderblom et al, 1990). However, an endogen origin (driven by internal heat) cannot be currently discarded; this possibility would be consistent with fast ejection speed suggesting a deep source (Laufer et al, 2013). Numerous dark streaks present on the polar cap may also be a result of such plume activity.…”

Section: Interior and Surfacementioning

confidence: 99%

Neptune and Triton: Essential pieces of the Solar System puzzle

Masters

Achilleos²,

Agnor³

et al. 2014

Planetary and Space Science

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Experimental studies of ice grain ejection by massive gas flow from ice and implications to Comets, Triton and Mars

Cited by 12 publications

References 37 publications

Experimenting with Mixtures of Water Ice and Dust as Analogues for Icy Planetary Material

Experimenting with Mixtures of Water Ice and Dust as Analogues for Icy Planetary Material

New experimental studies of ice grain ejection by massive gas flow, implications to comets, Enceladus, Triton and Mars

Neptune and Triton: Essential pieces of the Solar System puzzle

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