The Fate of Debris Launched from the Galilean Satellites

Details The Fate of Debris Launched from the Galilean Satellites The Fate of Debris Launched from the Galilean Satellites

Jun 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dda....37.1302h&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #37, #13.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.674

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

A small fraction of interplanetary material moving at high speeds through the jovian system is intercepted by the Galilean satellites; the resulting energetic collisions chip bits of material off the moons and populate a diffuse torus of circumplanetary debris. We investigate the fate of this ejected material, focusing on both the transport probabilities between satellites and the steady-state spatial distribution of the material itself. Our goals are twofold. First we hope to quantify processes that deliver exotic compounds to satellite surfaces (e.g. sulfur from Io and possible organics from Europa). In addition, we seek an explanation for the 5-10 micron dust grains detected at high jovian latitudes by the two Pioneer spacecraft.
We find that large dust grains (> 20 microns) tend to keep either their pericenter or apocenter distances tied to the orbital radius of a Galilean satellite, while smaller micron-sized grains, dominated by strong non-gravitational forces including electromagnetism and radiation pressure, spread more evenly throughout the jovian system. Typical lifetimes for these grains are a few hundred years; large grains are typically lost to the satellites, while many small grains are also transferred to Jupiter. We find transitions to both interior and exterior satellites, although the former occur more readily. Our
integrations show that roughly 80%-90% of gravitationally-dominated ejecta returns to the source while the bulk of the remaining material is transferred to the nearest neighboring satellites. Particles of all sizes are scattered to high latitudes, and the 5-10 micron debris forms a distribution that readily accounts for the Pioneer detections.

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