ScientificSerendipity-SchoolNotes.pptVIP

Scientific Serendipity: Building Planets in Plastic Bags Article: Building Planets in Plastic Bags APRIL 13, 2004 by David Tytell Adapted by W. Sturges 2010 Sometimes important scientific discoveries happen by chance: In 2003 astronaut Donald R. Pettit (NASA/Johnson Space Center) was aboard the International Space Station preparing his weekly Saturday Morning Science program, in which he performed various experiments highlighting the fun things one can do in microgravity. Before him were plastic bags containing salt, sugar, and coffee grounds. The demonstration he had planned that morning was fairly mundane - shake the bags and watch what happens. Little did Pettit know he might be about to solve experimentally one of most perplexing paradoxes surrounding the formation of planets. The problem: For decades theorists have had trouble growing planets starting from small dust grains in a protoplanetary gas-and-dust disk. Given a turbulent disk environment with high winds and high-velocity (100 meters/second) impacts between objects, small, millimeter-size clumps should have difficulty growing to centimeter size and larger without breaking back into millimeter fragments. No one had ever seen it work experimentally. What Pettit did: Pettit proceeded to take the bags of particles and shake them in front of the camera. Within seconds, as the videos show, the grains clumped together to form centimeter-scale structures. These fractal-like globs appear particularly strong, colliding with the walls of the plastic bag and remaining largely intact. Small salt grains (0.5 millimeters across) clump to form centimeter-size structures in seconds when left alone in microgravity. Courtesy Donald R. Pettit (NASA/Johnson Space Center) When the salt grains clump together, the fractal structures are much stronger than one might assume since these structures survive impacts with the sides of the plastic bag.Courtesy Donald R. Pettit (NASA/Johnson Space Center) Someone noticed: