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Photo by Joe Angeles
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Measuring stardust
(From left) Robert M. Walker, Ph.D., the McDonnell Professor of physics
in Arts & Sciences and former director of the McDonnell Center for
the Space Sciences, explains how the new NanoSIMS instrument (foreground)
operates to Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor and
dean of Arts & Sciences, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and John F. McDonnell,
chairman of the University's Board of Trustees, during an open house
April 2 for the University community. The NanoSIMS is a first-of-its-kind
ion microprobe in the Laboratory for Space Sciences in Arts & Sciences
and is housed on the fourth floor of Compton Hall. The $2 million
instrument is the first in the world built to analyze the isotopic
and elemental composition of extremely small samples, such as interplanetary
dust particles, at a sub-micrometer scale, allowing a first-time look
at those particles' subcomponents. |
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