Stardust Interstellar Preliminary Examination IX: High‐speed interstellar dust analog capture in Stardust flight‐spare aerogel

Abstract The NASA Stardust mission used silica aerogel slabs to slowly decelerate and capture impinging cosmic dust particles for return to Earth. During this process, impact tracks are generated along the trajectory of the particle into the aerogel. It is believed that the morphology and dimensions of these tracks, together with the state of captured grains at track termini, may be linked to the size, velocity, and density of the impacting …