Dust distribution around Neptune - Grain impacts near the ring plane measured by the Voyager planetary radio astronomy experiment

Details Dust distribution around Neptune - Grain impacts near the ring plane measured by the Voyager planetary radio astronomy experiment Dust distribution around Neptune - Grain impacts near the ring plane measured by the Voyager planetary radio astronomy experiment

Oct 1991

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991jgr....9619187p&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research Supplement (ISSN 0148-0227), vol. 96, Oct. 30, 1991, p. 19,187-19,196.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

15

Interplanetary Dust, Neptune (Planet), Planetary Rings, Radio Astronomy, Spatial Distribution, Electromagnetic Noise, Equatorial Regions, Ionization, Spacecraft Antennas, Vaporizing, Voyager 2 Spacecraft

Scientific paper

During the Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune, the planetary radio astronomy (PRA) experiment recorded an intense noise near the equatorial plane around 3.4 and 4.2 R(N), as already observed during previous Voyager ring plane crossings at Saturn and Uranus. This noise is interpreted as being due to impact ionization of dust grains striking the spacecraft. A power law index of the grain mass distribution of about 2 is deduced. The PRA system is sensitive to particles with radii larger than about 1.6 micron, and the largest particles, detected near the ring plane, are evaluated to have a radius of about 10 microns. The spatial dust distribution along the spacecraft trajectory around the two equatorial crossings is found not to be symmetrical with respect to the ring plane and spread over wide regions: over about 2 R(N) perpendicularly to the equatorial plane with the densest part concentrated within about 700 km. The vertical optical depth of this dense region is found to be 10 exp -6 to 10 exp -8.

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