A New Source of Interplanetary Dust: Type II Dust Trails

Details A New Source of Interplanetary Dust: Type II Dust Trails A New Source of Interplanetary Dust: Type II Dust Trails

May 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006sptz.prop30545n&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #30545

Computer Science

Scientific paper

Studies of the circumsolar (zodiacal) cloud serve as an important baseline for interpreting observations of extrasolar debris disks. The cometary trails and asteroid dust bands, both analyzed to a great detail in the past, provide vital information on the contribution of cometary activity and large asteroid collisions to the zodiacal cloud. Now, in our Cycle 1 Spitzer program, we detected a new important source of interplanetary dust particles that have not been seen since IRAS mission more than two decades ago, the Type II trails. Unlike narrow (~1 arcminute) comet trails, Type II trails are extremely wide (0.5-2 degrees) and were found by IRAS to extend over tens of degrees. Surface brightness estimates indicate that Type II trails could be supplying more dust to the interplanetary dust complex that all short-period comets combined. Using the IRAS and Spitzer data on detected Type II, our orbital elements fitting to these observations indicate a possible asteroid origin for these structures. Here we propose observations of Type II trails to determine their origin. We propose to make a series of three scan traverses of regions on the sky near the expected locations of the trails. By combining these data with our Cycle 1 observations, we will be able to determine the orbits of Type II trails precisely and to clearly distinguish between asteroidal and cometary sources. Moreover, the determined orbits will be used to pinpoint the exact location of sources of the observed dust particles. The detail structure of trails in different scans, when properly analyzed, will provide valuable insights into the details of their underlying dust production mechanism and formation history. Taken together, the observations proposed here will substantially contribute to our understanding of the zodiacal cloud and its evolution over time.

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