Experimental Investigation of Regolith Adhesion in Low-Energy, Microgravity Interactions: Implications for Planetesimal Accretion

The processes that lead to growth from micron-sized dust grains to km-size bodies span orders of magnitude in particle size, velocity, and timescales, resulting in a complex problem that requires extensive modeling and experimental inputs. Our lab, the UCF Center for Microgravity Research, carries out experiments involving low velocity collisions between particles in size ranges relevant to the early stages of planet formation as well as the conditions anticipated during small, airless body lander and sample return missions. We present a comparison of experiments in various microgravity environments that provide experimental input on the efficiency of accretion in the early solar system.