Detection of an impact-generated dust cloud around Ganymede

Details Detection of an impact-generated dust cloud around Ganymede Detection of an impact-generated dust cloud around Ganymede

Jun 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999natur.399..558k&link_type=abstract

Nature, Volume 399, Issue 6736, pp. 558-560 (1999).

Physics

19

Scientific paper

Dust pervades the Solar System, and is concentrated in the ring systems surrounding the giant planets and along the plane of the planetary orbits (the Zodiacal cloud). Individual dust grains are thought to be generated when impacts loft material from larger bodies,,, 27 such as satellites. Uncertainties in theoretical models of this ejection process are large, and there have hitherto been no direct measurements with which to constrain these models. Here we report in situ measurements of submicrometre dust within a few radii of Jupiter's satellite Ganymede. The directions, speeds and distribution of masses of the grains indicate that they come from Ganymede, and are consistent with an ejection process resulting from hypervelocity impacts of interplanetary dust onto Ganymede's surface. Dust appears also to be concentrated near Callisto and Europa, suggesting that these satellites too are significant sources of dusty debris.

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