Three years of Galileo dust data: II. 1993 to 1995

Abstract

Between Jan 1993 and Dec 1995 the Galileo spacecraft traversed interplanetary space between Earth and Jupiter and arrived at Jupiter on 7 Dec 1995. The dust instrument onboard was operating during most of the time. A relatively constant impact rate of interplanetary and interstellar (big) particles of 0.4 impacts per day was detected over the whole three-year time span. In the outer solar system (outside about 2.6 AU) they are mostly of interstellar origin, whereas in the inner solar system they are mostly interplanetary particles. Within about 1.7 AU from Jupiter intense streams of small dust particles were detected with impact rates of up to 20,000 per day whose impact directions are compatible with a Jovian origin. Two different populations of dust particles were detected in the Jovian magnetosphere: small stream particles during Galileo's approach to the planet and big particles concentrated closer to Jupiter between the Galilean satellites. There is strong evidence that the dust stream particles are orders of magnitude smaller in mass and faster than the instrument's calibration, whereas the calibration is valid for the big particles. Because the data transmission rate was very low, the complete data set for only a small fraction (2525) of all detected particles could be transmitted to Earth; the other particles were only counted. Together with the 358 particles published earlier, information about 2883 particles detected by the dust instrument during Galileo's six years' journey to Jupiter is now available.

Accepted for Planetary and Space Science, 37 pages, 5 tables, 13 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Three years of Galileo dust data: II. 1993 to 1995
• In Situ Measurements of Interstellar Dust

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Aspects of the Mass Distribution of Interstellar Dust Grains in the Solar System from In-Situ Measurements
• A Dust Cloud of Ganymede Maintained by Hypervelocity Impacts of Interplanetary Micrometeoroids
• Prediction of the In-Situ Dust Measurements of the Stardust Mission to Comet 81P/Wild 2
• Three years of Galileo dust data: II. 1993 to 1995
• Analysis of the sensor characteristics of the Galileo dust detector with collimated Jovian dust stream particles
• Three years of Ulysses dust data: 2005 to 2007
• Collisional Consequences of Big Interstellar Grains
• Four years of Ulysses dust data: 1996 to 1999
• Jovian dust streams: Probes of the Io plasma torus
• One year of Galileo dust data from the Jovian system: 1996
• Galileo In-Situ Dust Measurements in Jupiter's Gossamer Rings
• Small impacts on the giant planet Jupiter
• Galileo dust data from the jovian system: 2000 to 2003
• Dust in the Jupiter system outside the rings
• Cosmic Dust: The Ulysses perspective
• Dust en-route to Jupiter and the Galilean satellites