We have developed a space simulator which can be used to
replicate the thermal environment in the immediate neighborhood
of the Sun, down to a heliocentric distance r 0.05 au. The system
consists of three main parts: the solar simulator which was designed
and constructed in-house, a vacuum chamber, and the probing and
recording equipment needed to monitor the experimental
procedures. Our motivation for building this experimental system was to
study the effect of intense solar radiation on the surfaces of asteroids
when their perihelion distances become smaller than the semi-major axis
of the orbit of Mercury. Recent orbit and size-frequency models on the
population of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) have proposed that asteroids
are disrupted catastrophically when they approach the Sun in
order for model predictions to match the observational data. Whereas
the current models are agnostic about the disruption mechanism, the
system described here was developed to study the mechanism or mechanisms
responsible. The system can, however, be used for other applications
that need to study the effects of high solar radiation on other natural
or artificial objects.
The seminar will be online as well. See emails for connection details.
Created 2021-11-09 11:10:46 by Mats Holmström Last changed 2021-11-09 11:15:30 by Mats Holmström
