Evidence for Fluffy Particles & Organics Compounds in the Interplanetary Dust

Details Evidence for Fluffy Particles & Organics Compounds in the Interplanetary Dust Evidence for Fluffy Particles & Organics Compounds in the Interplanetary Dust

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.3501l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #35.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.547

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The interplanetary dust originates from fluffy cometary particles, more compact asteroidal particles, and (to a lesser extent) small grains coming from interstellar medium and Jupiter or Saturn system. Their bulk physical properties may be inferred from scattered and emitted light observations that are integrated all over the line of sight. Local values of the linear polarization (and of its phase angle dependence) and of the temperature are derived through inversion algorithms [e.g. 1].
A versatile model of light scattered by an optically thin dust cloud has been developed assuming i) the presence of both spheroidal compact particles and fractal aggregates of spheroidal grains, ii) a bimodal composition with non-absorbing silicates and absorbing organics, iii) power law size distributions [2]. The dust polarimetric phase curves near 1 AU are well reproduced through a size distribution in the 0.2 to 100 μm range with power law indices of (-3) for sizes below 20 μm and of (-4.4) above, with 30-55 % in mass of organics and 20 % in mass of aggregates (probably of cometary origin) [3]. A comparison between observed and computed temperatures (for different shapes) also indicates that the absorbing material is an important component. Finally, polarization and temperature variations with decreasing solar distance in the 1.5 to 0.5 AU range are related to a slow decrease (with evaporation) in the organics proportion.
These results confirm that comets significantly replenish the interplanetary dust cloud, which could thus have played an important role in the enrichment of early Earth in organics.
[1] Levasseur-Regourd, Mann, Dumont, Hanner, In Interplanetary dust, Springer, 57-94, 2001. [2] Lasue & Levasseur-Regourd, JQSRT 100, 220-236, 2006. [3] Levasseur-Regourd, Mukai, Lasue, Okada, PSS, in press, 2006.

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