Chemical Composition Measurement of Cosmic Dust from Impact Generated Plasmas

In-situ chemical analysis of cosmic dust is possible due to hypervelocity impact ionization. Upon impact on a solid surface, a dust grain is vaporized and partially ionized. Mass analysis of the atomic or molecular ions is used to reveal the chemical composition of the dust. There are past and currently operating dust impact analyzer instruments on the Stardust and Cassini spacecrafts, for example, but the need remains for laboratory calibration measurements to aid the interpretation of the mass spectra. A set of measurements is presented using dust samples of cosmic interest, electrostatically accelerated to relevant velocities and detected with a novel diagnostic instrument. The measurements are performed at the Heidelberg dust accelerator facility, where dust particles are accelerated to up to 50 km/s. The instrument used for the calibration is the prototype version of the recently developed Large Area Mass Analyzer (LAMA), which combines large active target area with high mass resolution.