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Interstellar dust module for the ESA meteoroid model

Landgraf, M. 1, Jehn, R. 1, Altobelli, N. 1, Dikarev, V. 1, Grün, E.1
Affiliation data not available1

Document details

Publishing year2001 PublisherESA Publishing typeConference Name of conference3rd European Conference on Space Debris
Pagesn/a Volume
3
Issue
1
Editors
H. Lacoste

Abstract

The ESA meteoroid model predicts impacts of meteoroids in the mass range between 10-18 to 100g on spacecraft surface. It covers heliocentric distances from 0.3 to 20 AU. Measurements of the dust detector on board the highly successful joint ESA/NASA mission Ulysses have shown, that the flux of meteoroids with masses between 10-15 and 10-12g is, at least in the outer Solar System, dominated by interstellar dust grains that traverse the Solar System as it travels through the local interstellar cloud. We present a simple semi-analytic interstellar dust model that can easily be included in the ESA meteoroid model, together with a more precise determination of the flux direction of the interstellar dust stream. The model is based on the assumption that interstellar dust dynamics have two effects: solar gravitation and radiation pressure determines the spatial distribution, and Lorentz-interaction of the charged particles creates a temporal variation.

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