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The interplanetary dust cloud is cosmic dust
Cosmic dust

Cosmic dust is a type of dust composed of particles in space which are a few molecules to 0.1 mm in size. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location; for example: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust , interplanetary dust and circumplanetary dust ....
 (small particles floating in space) which pervade the space between planet
Planet

A planet , as 2006 definition of planet by the International Astronomical Union , is a celestial body orbiting a star or Stellar evolution#Stellar remnants that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared the neighbourhood of planetesimals....
s in the Solar System
Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and those Astronomical object bound to it by gravity: the eight planets and five dwarf planets, their 173 known Natural satellite, and billions of Small Solar System body....
 and in other planetary systems. It has been studied for many years in order to understand its nature, origin, and relationship to larger bodies.

In our solar system, the dust particles not only scatter solar light (called the "zodiacal light
Zodiacal light

The zodiacal light is a faint, roughly triangular, whitish glow seen in the night sky which appears to extend up from the vicinity of the sun along the ecliptic or zodiac....
", which is confined to the ecliptic plane
Ecliptic

The ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun traces out in the sky during the year. As it appears to move in the sky in relation to the stars, the apparent path aligns with the planets throughout the course of the year....
), buts also produce thermal
Thermal

A thermal column is a column of rising air in the lower altitudes of the Earth's atmosphere. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of the Earth's surface from solar radiation, and an example of convection....
 emission
Emission (electromagnetic radiation)

In physics, emission is the process by which the energy of a photon is released by another entity, for example, by an atom whose electrons make a transition between two electronic energy levels....
, which is the most prominent feature of the night-sky light in the 5-50 micrometer wavelength domain (Levasseur-Regourd, A.C.






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The interplanetary dust cloud is cosmic dust
Cosmic dust

Cosmic dust is a type of dust composed of particles in space which are a few molecules to 0.1 mm in size. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location; for example: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust , interplanetary dust and circumplanetary dust ....
 (small particles floating in space) which pervade the space between planet
Planet

A planet , as 2006 definition of planet by the International Astronomical Union , is a celestial body orbiting a star or Stellar evolution#Stellar remnants that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared the neighbourhood of planetesimals....
s in the Solar System
Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and those Astronomical object bound to it by gravity: the eight planets and five dwarf planets, their 173 known Natural satellite, and billions of Small Solar System body....
 and in other planetary systems. It has been studied for many years in order to understand its nature, origin, and relationship to larger bodies.

In our solar system, the dust particles not only scatter solar light (called the "zodiacal light
Zodiacal light

The zodiacal light is a faint, roughly triangular, whitish glow seen in the night sky which appears to extend up from the vicinity of the sun along the ecliptic or zodiac....
", which is confined to the ecliptic plane
Ecliptic

The ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun traces out in the sky during the year. As it appears to move in the sky in relation to the stars, the apparent path aligns with the planets throughout the course of the year....
), buts also produce thermal
Thermal

A thermal column is a column of rising air in the lower altitudes of the Earth's atmosphere. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of the Earth's surface from solar radiation, and an example of convection....
 emission
Emission (electromagnetic radiation)

In physics, emission is the process by which the energy of a photon is released by another entity, for example, by an atom whose electrons make a transition between two electronic energy levels....
, which is the most prominent feature of the night-sky light in the 5-50 micrometer wavelength domain (Levasseur-Regourd, A.C. 1996). The grains characterizing the infrared emission near the earth
Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
's orbit
ORBit

ORBit is a Common Object Request Broker Architecture 2.4 compliant Object Request Broker . It features mature C , C++ and Python bindings, and less developed bindings for Perl, Lisp , Pascal , Ruby , and Tcl....
 have typical sizes of 10-100 micrometers (Backman, D., 1997). The total mass of the interplanetary dust cloud is about the mass of an asteroid
Asteroid

Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
 of radius 15 km (with density of about 2.5 g/cm3).

Sources of interplanetary dust

The sources of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) include at least: asteroid collisions, comet
Comet

A comet is a Small Solar System body that orbits the Sun and, when close enough to the Sun, exhibits a visible coma or a tail?both primarily from the effects of solar radiation upon the Comet nucleus....
ary activity and collisions in the inner solar system, Kuiper Belt
Kuiper belt

The Kuiper belt , sometimes called the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of Neptune to approximately 55 Astronomical unit from the Sun....
 collisions, and interstellar medium
Interstellar medium

In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the gas and cosmic dust that pervade interstellar space: the matter that exists between the stars within a galaxy....
 grains (Backman, D., 1997). Indeed, one of the longest-standing controversies debated in the interplanetary dust community revolves around the relative contributions to the interplanetary dust cloud from asteroid collisions and cometary activity.

Dust particle life cycle

The main physical processes "affecting" (destruction or expulsion mechanisms) interplanetary dust particles are: expulsion by radiation pressure
Radiation pressure

Radiation pressure is the pressure exerted upon any surface exposed to electromagnetic radiation. If absorbed, the pressure is the power flux density divided by the speed of light....
, inward Poynting-Robertson (PR) radiation drag, solar wind
Solar wind

The solar wind is a Electric current—a Plasma —ejected from the stellar atmosphere of the sun. It consists mostly of electrons and protons with energies of about 1 electron volt....
 pressure (with significant electromagnetic effects), sublimation
Sublimation

Sublimation can have several meanings:* Sublimation , the change from solid to gas, while at no point becoming a liquid.* Sublimation , the transformation of emotions....
, mutual collisions, and the dynamical effects of planets (Backman, D., 1997).

The lifetimes of these dust particles are very short compared to the lifetime of the Solar System
Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and those Astronomical object bound to it by gravity: the eight planets and five dwarf planets, their 173 known Natural satellite, and billions of Small Solar System body....
. If one finds grains around a star that is older than about 100,000,000 years, then the grains must have been from recently released fragments of larger objects, i.e. they cannot be leftover grains from the protoplanetary disk
Protoplanetary disk

A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star or Herbig Ae/Be stars....
 (Backman, private communication). Therefore, the grains would be "later-generation" dust. The zodiacal dust in the solar system is 99.9% later-generation dust and 0.1% intruding interstellar medium
Interstellar medium

In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the gas and cosmic dust that pervade interstellar space: the matter that exists between the stars within a galaxy....
 dust. All primordial grains from the Solar System's formation were removed long ago.

Particles which are affected primarily by radiation pressure are known as beta meteoroids. They are generally less than 1.4 x 10-12 g and spiral outward from the sun into interstellar space.

Interplanetary dust structures

The interplanetary dust cloud has a complex structure (Reach, W., 1997). Apart from a background density, this includes:
  • At least 8 dust trails -- their source is thought to be short-period comets.
  • A number of dust bands, the sources of which are thought to be asteroid families
    Asteroid family

    An asteroid family is a population of asteroids that share similar orbital elements, such as semimajor axis, eccentricity , and orbital inclination....
     in the main asteroid belt. The three strongest bands arise from the Themis family
    Themis family

    The Themis Asteroid Family is a Hirayama family of asteroids found in the outer portion of the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter....
    , the Koronis family
    Koronis family

    The Koronis family is a family of asteroids in the Asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. They are thought to have have been formed at least two billion years ago in a catastrophic collision between two larger bodies....
    , and the Eos family
    Eos family

    The Eos family is a prominent asteroid family of Asteroid belt asteroids that is believed to have formed as a result of an ancient catastrophic collision....
    . Other source families include the Maria, Eunomia, and possibly the Vesta
    Vesta family

    The Vesta asteroid family is a large and prominent grouping of mostly V-type asteroid asteroids in inner main belt in the vicinity of 4 Vesta. Approximately 6% of main belt asteroids belong to this family....
     and/or Hygiea
    Hygiea family

    The Hygiea asteroid family is a grouping of dark, carbonaceous C-type asteroid and B-type asteroid asteroids in outer main belt, the largest member of which is 10 Hygiea....
     families (Reach et al 1996).
  • At least 2 resonant dust rings are known (for example, the Earth-resonant dust ring, although every planet in the solar system is thought to have a resonant ring with a "wake") (Jackson and Zook, 1988, 1992) (Dermott, S.F. et al., 1994, 1997)


Collecting interplanetary dust on earth


In 1951, Fred Whipple predicted that micrometeorites smaller than 100 micrometers in diameter might be decelerated on impact with the earth's upper atmosphere without melting. The modern era of laboratory study of these particles began with the stratospheric collection flights of D. E. Brownlee and collaborators in the 1970s using balloons and then U-2
Lockheed U-2

The Lockheed Corporation U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, high-altitude aircraft flown by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency....
 aircraft.

Although some of the particles found were similar to the material in present day meteorite collections, the nanoporous
Nanoporous

Nanoporous materials consist of a regular Organic chemistry or inorganic framework supporting a regular, porous structure. Pores are by definition roughly in the nanometre range, that is between 1x10-7 and 0.2x10-9 m....
 nature and unequilibrated cosmic-average composition of other particles suggested that they began as fine-grained aggregates of nonvolatile building blocks and cometary ice. The interplanetary nature of these particles was later verified by noble gas
Noble gas

|}The noble gases are a group of chemical elements with very similar properties: under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases, with a very low chemical reactivity....
 and solar flare
Solar flare

A solar flare is a violent explosion in a star's atmosphere releasing as much energy as 6 × 1025 Joules. Solar flares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere , heating Plasma to tens of million Kelvin and accelerating electrons, protons and heavier ions to near the speed of light....
 track observations.

In that context a program for atmospheric collection and curation of these particles was developed at Johnson Space Center in Texas. This stratospheric micrometeorite collection, along with presolar grains
Presolar grains

Presolar grains are isotopically-distinct clusters of material found in the fine-grained Matrix of primitive meteorites, whose differences from the surrounding meteorite suggest that they are older than the solar system....
 from meteorites, are unique sources of extraterrestrial material
Extraterrestrial materials

Most atoms on earth came from the interstellar dust and gas from which the sun and solar system formed. However, in the space science community "extraterrestrial materials" generally refers to objects now on earth that were solidified prior to arriving on earth....
 (not to mention being small astronomical objects in their own right) available for study in laboratories today.

See also


  • Cosmic dust
    Cosmic dust

    Cosmic dust is a type of dust composed of particles in space which are a few molecules to 0.1 mm in size. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location; for example: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust , interplanetary dust and circumplanetary dust ....
  • Micrometeoroid
    Micrometeoroid

    A micrometeoroid is a tiny meteoroid; a small particle of rock in space, usually weighing less than a gram. A micrometeor or micrometeorite is such a particle that enters the Earth's atmosphere or falls to Earth....
  • Atmospheric entry


Footnotes