In situ observation of penetration process in silica aerogel: Deceleration mechanism of hard spherical projectiles

A large number of cometary dust particles were captured with low-density silica aerogels by NASA’s Stardust Mission. Knowledge of the details of the capture mechanism of hypervelocity particles in silica aerogel is needed in order to correctly derive the original particle features from impact tracks. However, the mechanism has not been fully understood yet. We shot hard spherical projectiles of several different materials into silica aerogel of density 60 mg cm−3 and observed their penetration processes using an image converter or a high-speed video camera. In order to observe the deceleration of projectiles clearly, we carried out impact experiments at two velocity ranges; ∼4 km s−1 and ∼200 m s−1. From the movies we took, it was indicated that the projectiles were decelerated by hydrodynamic force which was proportional to v2 (v: projectile velocity) during the faster penetration process (∼4 km s−1) and they were merely overcoming the aerogel crushing strength during the slower penetration process (∼200 m s−1). We applied these deceleration mechanisms for whole capture process to calculate the track length. Our model well explains the track length in the experimental data set by Burchell et al. (Burchell, M.J., Creighton, J.A., Cole, M.J., Mann, J., Kearsley, A.T. [2001]. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 36, 209–221).