COCoNuT
COCoNuT (Characteristic Observation of Cometary Nuclei using THz-spectroscopy) is a study to determine the viability of studying comets using in-situ THz-spectroscopy.
The setup is able to simulate the conditions found on comets in a laboratory.
COCoNuT is an experimental setup built around the TeraFlash Pro THz-Spectrometer from Toptica. COCoNuT is used as a proof of concept to lay the groundwork for a THz-Spectrometer on a future space mission to a comet. The goal is to establish an approach to determine the physio-chemical properties of cometary nuclei and their relevance to proto-planet formation.
The system is designed as a main vacuum chamber with a smaller pre (loading) chamber. The two chambers are separated with a gate valve.
The main chamber can be pumped and cooled down while the sample is loaded into the pre-chamber. To prevent flooding and warming up the main chamber while loading the sample, we can pump down the pre-chamber before inserting the sample on the sample holder into the main chamber.
A goniometer holds the transmitter and receiver antenna of the time domain THz-spectrometer. This allows measuring the sample at multiple different phase angles and switching between transmission and reflection measurements.
