Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008epsc.conf..950k&link_type=abstract
European Planetary Science Congress 2008, Proceedings of the conference held 21-25 September, 2008 in Münster, Germany. Online a
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
In the early 1990s, after its Jupiter yby, the Ulysses spacecraft identi ed interstellar dust in the solar system. Since 1992 until the end of 2007 the in-situ dust detector on board Ulysses continuously monitored interstellar grains with masses up to 10-13 kg, penetrating deep into the solar system. While Ulysses measured the interstellar dust stream at high ecliptic latitudes between 3 and 5 AU, interstellar impactors were also measured with the dust detectors on board Cassini, Galileo and Helios, covering a heliocentric distance range between 0.3 and 3 AU in the ecliptic plane. The interstellar dust stream in the inner solar system is altered by the solar radiation pressure force, gravitational focussing and interaction of charged grains with the time varying interplanetary magnetic eld. The grains act as tracers of the physical conditions in the local interstellar cloud (LIC). Our in-situ measurements imply the existence of a population of 'big' interstellar grains (up to 10-13 kg) and a gas-to-dust-mass ratio in the LIC which is a factor of > 2 larger than the one derived from astronomical observations, indicating a concentration of interstellar dust in the very local interstellar medium. Until 2004, the interstellar dust ow direction measured by Ulysses was close to the mean apex of the Sun's motion through the LIC, while in 2005, the data showed a 30 degree shift, the reason of which is presently unknown. We review the in-situ interstellar dust measurements obtained from a eet of four spacecraft in the solar system and present the latest results from the Ulysses mission.
Altobelli Nicolas
Grün Eberhard
Krüger Hans
Landgraf Markus
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