A Search for Resonant Structures in the Zodiacal Cloud with COBE DIRBE: The Mars Wake and Jupiter's Trojan Clouds

Abstract

We searched the COBE DIRBE Sky and Zodi Atlas for a wake of dust trailing Mars and for Trojan dust near Jupiter's L5 Lagrange point. We compare the DIRBE images to a model Mars wake based on the empirical model of the Earth's wake as seen by the DIRBE and place a 3-sigma upper limit on the fractional overdensity of particles in the Mars wake of 18% of the fractional overdensity trailing the Earth. We place a 3-sigma upper limit on the effective emitting area of large (10-100 micron diameter) particles trapped at Jupiter's L5 Lagrange point of 6 x 10^17 cm^2, assuming that these large dust grains are distributed in space like the Trojan asteroids. We would have detected the Mars wake if the surface area of dust in the wake scaled simply as the mass of the planet times the Poynting-Robertson time scale.

Sixteen pages, and figures 1, 2, 3a, 3b, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Accepted for publication in Icarus

References in corpus (2)

• The COBE Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment Search for the Cosmic Infrared Background: II. Model of the Interplanetary Dust Cloud
• Interstellar Dust Inside and Outside the Heliosphere

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Geometry of Resonant Signatures in Debris Disks with Planets
• A general model of resonance capture in planetary systems: First and second order resonances
• On the nature of clumps in debris disks
• Dust arcs in the region of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids
• Dust in the Jupiter system outside the rings
• Effects of neighbouring planets on the formation of resonant dust rings in the inner Solar System
• Comparison of the orbital properties of Jupiter Trojan asteroids and Trojan dust