The stratification of regolith on celestial objects

Abstract

All atmosphere-less planetary bodies are covered with a dust layer, the so-called regolith, which determines the optical, mechanical and thermal properties of their surface. These properties depend on the regolith material, the size distribution of the particles it consists of, and the porosity to which these particles are packed. We performed experiments in parabolic flights to determine the gravity dependency of the packing density of regolith for solid-particle sizes of 60 $\mu$m and 1 mm as well as for 100-250 $\mu$m-sized agglomerates of 1.5 $\mu$m-sized solid grains. We utilized g-levels between 0.7 m s${}^{-2}$ and 18 m s${}^{-2}$ and completed our measurements with experiments under normal gravity conditions. Based on previous experimental and theoretical literature and supported by our new experiments, we developed an analytical model to calculate the regolith stratification of celestial rocky and icy bodies and estimated the mechanical yields of the regolith under the weight of an astronaut and a spacecraft resting on these objects.

15 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Experiments on Corn Pressure in Silo Cells -- Translation and Comment of Janssen's Paper from 1895
• Influence of Particle Size Distribution on Random Close Packing
• A new method to determine the grain size of planetary regolith
• Dust release and tensile strength of the non-volatile layer of cometary nuclei
• Free Collisions in a Microgravity Many-Particle Experiment. I. Dust Aggregate Sticking at Low Velocities
• Micrometer-sized ice particles for planetary-science experiments - I. Preparation, critical rolling friction force, and specific surface energy
• Comets formed in solar-nebula instabilities! -- An experimental and modeling attempt to relate the activity of comets to their formation process (corrigendum included)
• The Physics of Protoplanetesimal Dust Agglomerates. IV. Towards a Dynamical Collision Model
• Free Collisions in a Microgravity Many-Particle Experiment III: The Collision Behavior of sub-Millimeter-Sized Dust Aggregates

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Rubble Pile Asteroids
• The thermal, mechanical, structural, and dielectric properties of cometary nuclei after Rosetta
• Comet formation in collapsing pebble clouds. What cometary bulk density implies for the cloud mass and dust-to-ice ratio
• Understanding planet formation using microgravity experiments
• Formation of Comets
• The collisional evolution of undifferentiated asteroids and the formation of chondritic meteoroids
• Collisional properties of cm-sized high-porosity ice and dust aggregates and their applications to early planet formation
• A method to distinguish between micro- and macro-granular surfaces of small Solar System bodies
• Interpebble contact radius in a comet nucleus
• Interparticle normal force in highly porous granular matter during compression
• Experiments on Settling of Granular and Cohesive Material in Low Gravity
• Numerical Investigation on the Compressive Behavior of Hierarchical Granular Piles