Space Scientist's Flight Of Discovery
A space scientist from the University of Strathclyde is to investigate how planets are formed - while upside down, 30,000 feet above sea level.
Astrochemist Dr Helen Fraser is part of an international team that will carry out research - the first of its kind - in weightless conditions aboard a plane in France. The 10 scientists are working to discover if particles become glued together to form large 'rocks', and eventually planets, because of the extreme cold and ice of space.
Their Novespace plane, contracted by the European Space Agency, will fly upwards at 45 degrees before plunging downwards - a process that will be repeated 30 times on each of a series of flights. This will provide them with 20 second windows of zero-gravity when they will conduct the experiments.
Dr Fraser said: "This is the first time this kind of research has been carried out, so we're very excited about the results. People have for centuries been trying to understand the origins of life, and the question of how planets are formed is a central part of that.
"We'll conduct a series of experiments to help us find out why small grains of aggregate stick together to form bigger grains, and potentially planets. The roller-coaster motion of the plane will help us create the space-like conditions we need for the experiments to work."
The scientists, who come from the UK, Germany and Holland, believe the very cold conditions and ice of space may be a major factor in why space dust sticks together in the earliest stages of planet building. Their experiments will involve colliding particles with each other in a specially-built vacuum chamber at -200 degrees Celsius to test the theory.
Dr Fraser said: "If you imagine you have two handfuls of sand and you push them together, the grains will fall apart. But if you do the same thing with two handfuls of snow, they'll stick.
"Our research will involve firing two particles together at minus 200 degrees Celsius to find out whether they stick or fall apart. An ultra-fast camera will be attached to the vacuum chamber to take pictures every few nano-seconds. Once we have the photographs, we will analyse the results and see the affects of the cold conditions."
The research is being funded by grants to Dr Fraser from SUPA, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance; and in the Netherlands by SRON, the Space Research Organisation Netherlands; and NOVA, the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy.
Additional funding has been obtained via DLR, the German Space Agency, for colleagues in Germany, as well as industrial support from the European Space Agency, Dutch Space, VTS Ltd, Kaiser Threade and Pfeiffer Vacuum.
The flights will begin on 24 October.
Helen Fraser in space
Helen Fraser is currently participating in a European Space Agency Parabolic Flight Campaign above Bordeaux. The project is investigating ice and dust interactions in microgravity. Helen experienced weightlessness for the first time yesterday and is seen here happily boarding the plane (there was no "after" photo!). More information, photos, flight details and videos are available at http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~parabolic.
