In this article we first review the roles of hypervelocity impacts in volatile partitioning on planetary surfaces and thermodynamics of shock vaporization/devolatilization of geologic materials. Impact experiment in an open system is essential to accurately estimate the shock pressure required for incipient vaporization/devolatilization, and we introduce a newly-developed open system experimental technique applied to two-stage light gas guns. This experimental apparatus allows us to measure impact-generated gases with a mass spectrometer at the same geometry of natural impacts with a limited risk of chemical contamination from the gun operation. The threshold pressures of vaporization/devolatilization for halite and gypsum were measured to be 18-31 GPa and <11 GPa, respectively. The new open system method is expected to serve as a powerful tool to explore the nature of shock vaporization/devolatilization of geologic materials.
A shooting star is caused by an entry of a cosmic dust particle into the planetary atmosphere. The light from the shooting star composed of thermal emission and emission lines from the gas in from of the dust particle and the vapor from the dust particle. It means that the physical and chemical condition of the dust particle can be estimated from a photometric and/or spectroscopic observations. However a shooting star is a sporadic and un-controled event, and thus the relation between the physical and chemical condition and the resulting spectroscopic observation is estimated by empirical equations.We are constructing a laboratory experimental system to simulate shooting stars by using a two-stage light gas gun at Planetary Exploration Research Center (PERC), Chiba Instiute of Technology, Japan. This gun shoots a projectile with size of 2 mm into a observational chamber filled with gas. The light from the projectile is observed by high-speed camera with 1 Mfps and its spectrum is taken by spectrometer simultaneously.We carried out a series of experiments using the system with a variety of projectile composition. The specific spectra relating to the projectile component were confirmed as a function of the location from the projectile (during head-neck-tail structure). We will give the experimental results and discuss the chemical and physical status of shooting star.