Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
8143015 | Planetary and Space Science | 2015 | 10 Pages |
Abstract
COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyzer (COSIMA) is a time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) instrument on board the Rosetta space mission. COSIMA has been designed to measure the composition of cometary dust particles. It has a mass resolution m/Îm of 1400 at mass 100Â u, thus enabling the discrimination of inorganic mass peaks from organic ones in the mass spectra. We have evaluated the identification capabilities of the reference model of COSIMA for inorganic compounds using a suite of terrestrial minerals that are relevant for cometary science. Ground calibration demonstrated that the performances of the flight model were similar to that of the reference model. The list of minerals used in this study was chosen based on the mineralogy of meteorites, interplanetary dust particles and Stardust samples. It contains anhydrous and hydrous ferromagnesian silicates, refractory silicates and oxides (present in meteoritic Ca-Al-rich inclusions), carbonates, and Fe-Ni sulfides. From the analyses of these minerals, we have calculated relative sensitivity factors for a suite of major and minor elements in order to provide a basis for element quantification for the possible identification of major mineral classes present in the cometary particles.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Geophysics
Authors
Harald Krüger, Thomas Stephan, Cécile Engrand, Christelle Briois, Sandra Siljeström, Sihane Merouane, Donia Baklouti, Henning Fischer, Nicolas Fray, Klaus Hornung, Harry Lehto, Francois-Régis Orthous-Daunay, Jouni Rynö, Rita Schulz, Johan Silén,