Fachbereich 14 - Geowissenschaften
Institut für Planetologie
Analytische Planetologie

Properties of interplanetary dust

The properties of hundreds of interplanetary particles have been determined by direct laboratory analysis of recovered samples. The particles that span the 1 µm to 1 mm size range have been collected from the stratosphere, from polar ice and from deep sea sediments. Typically, these particles are black, somewhat porous and have chondritic elemental compositions. They are rather complex mineral assemblages in that they are mixtures of very large numbers of sub-micrometer-sized components. While the data are not totally representative of small interplanetary meteoroids at 1 AU they provide significant insight into the common physical properties of meteoroids. These properties can be used as guidelines for analysis of spacecraft and astronomical observations and for modeling solar system dust as well as some circumstellar dust in systems around other stars.

Drittmittelgeber:

International Space Science Institute, Bern

Beteiligte Wissenschaftler:

Elmar K. Jessberger, Thomas Stephan, Detlef Rost et al.

Veröffentlichungen:

Jessberger, E.K., T. Stephan, D. Rost, P. Arndt, M. Maetz, F.J. Stadermann, D.E. Brownlee, J. Bradley, G. Kurat (2001): Properties of interplanetary dust: Information from collected samples. In: Interplanetary Dust, eds. S.F. Dermott, H. Fechtig, E. Grün, and B.A.S. Gustafson, Springer, Heidelberg, 253-294.