The lunar dust pendulum |
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Authors: | Michael R Collier William M Farrell Timothy J Stubbs |
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Institution: | 1. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 695, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA;2. Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, MD 21250, USA;3. NASA’s Lunar Science Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA |
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Abstract: | An analytic model for the motion of a positively charged lunar dust grain in the presence of a shadowed crater at a negative potential in vacuum is presented. It is shown that the dust grain executes oscillatory trajectories, and an expression is derived for the period of oscillation. Simulations used to verify the analytic expression also show that because the trajectories are unstable, dust grains are either ejected from the crater’s vicinity or deposited into the crater forming “dust ponds.” The model also applies to other airless bodies in the solar system, such as asteroids, and predicts that under certain conditions, particularly near lunar sunset, oscillating dust “canopies” or “swarms” will form over negatively charged craters. |
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Keywords: | Lunar dust Electrostatic transport Lunar surface potential |
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