A proposed experiment to study the critical ionization velocity theory in space

摘要: A simple, novel experiment is suggested to verify the critical ionization hypothesis in space. The involves isentropic expansion of gas through a carefully chosen nozzle and skimmer so that formation dimers trimers enhanced. Because reduced potentials these species because increased mass, it expected velocity will be lowered considerably even for simple gases such as N2. release aboard space shuttle, whose orbiting about 7.3 km s−1, provide necessary relative ambient ions ionize trimers. advantages this method over previously tried or proposed methods are briefly discussed.