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Register a new user16 Years of Ulysses Interstellar Dust Measurements in the Solar System: I. Mass Distribution and Gas-to-Dust Mass Ratio
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In the early 1990s, contemporary interstellar dust (ISD) penetrating deep into the heliosphere was identified with the in-situ dust detector on board the Ulysses spacecraft. Between 1992 and the end of 2007 Ulysses monitored the ISD stream. The interstellar grains act as tracers of the physical conditions in the local interstellar medium surrounding our solar system. Earlier analyses of the Ulysses ISD data measured between 1992 and 1998 implied the existence of big ISD grains [up to 10^-13kg]. The derived gas-to-dust-mass ratio was smaller than the one derived from astronomical observations, implying a concentration of ISD in the very local interstellar medium. We analyse the entire data set from 16 yr of Ulysses ISD measurements in interplanetary space. This paper concentrates on the overall mass distribution of ISD. An accompanying paper investigates time-variable phenomena in the Ulysses ISD data, and in a third paper we present the results from dynamical modelling of the ISD flow applied to Ulysses. We use the latest values for the interstellar hydrogen and helium densities, the interstellar helium flow speed of v_ISM,inf=23.2km/s, and the ratio of radiation pressure to gravity, beta, calculated for astronomical silicates. We find a gas-to-dust-mass ratio in the local interstellar cloud of R_g/d=193^+85_-57, and a dust density of 2.1+/-0.6x10^-24kg/m^3. For a higher inflow speed of 26km/s, the gas-to-dust-mass ratio is 20% higher, and, accordingly, the dust density is lower by the same amount. The gas-to-dust mass ratio derived from our new analysis is compatible with the value most recently determined from astronomical observations. We confirm earlier results that the very local interstellar medium contains big (i.e. 1 um-sized) ISD grains. We find a dust density in the local interstellar medium that is a factor of three lower than values implied by earlier analyses.
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The Ulysses spacecraft has been orbiting the Sun on a highly inclined ellipse since it encountered Jupiter in February 1992. Since then it made almost three revolutions about the Sun. Here we report on the final three years of data taken by the on-board dust detector. During this time, the dust detector recorded 609 dust impacts of particles with masses 10^-16 g <= m <= 10^-7 g, bringing the mission total to 6719 dust data sets. The impact rate varied from a low value of 0.3 per day at high ecliptic latitudes to 1.5 per day in the inner solar system. The impact direction of the majority of impacts between 2005 and 2007 is compatible with particles of interstellar origin, the rest are most likely interplanetary particles. We compare the interstellar dust measurements from 2005/2006 with the data obtained during earlier periods (1993/1994) and (1999/2000) when Ulysses was traversing the same spatial region at southern ecliptic latitudes but the solar cycle was at a different phase. During these three intervals the impact rate of interstellar grains varied by more than a factor of two. Furthermore, in the two earlier periods the grain impact direction was in agreement with the flow direction of the interstellar helium while in 2005/2006 we observed a shift in the approach direction of the grains by approximately 30 deg away from the ecliptic plane. The reason for this shift remains unclear but may be connected with the configuration of the interplanetary magnetic field during solar maximum. We also find that the dust measurements are in agreement with the interplanetary flux model of Staubach et al. (1997) which was developed to fit a 5-year span of Ulysses data.
The in-situ detection of interstellar dust grains in the Solar System by the dust instruments on-board the Ulysses and Galileo spacecraft as well as the recent measurements of hyperbolic radar meteors give information on the properties of the interstellar solid particle population in the solar vicinity. Especially the distribution of grain masses is indicative of growth and destruction mechanisms that govern the grain evolution in the interstellar medium. The mass of an impacting dust grain is derived from its impact velocity and the amount of plasma generated by the impact. Because the initial velocity and the dynamics of interstellar particles in the Solar System are well known, we use an approximated theoretical instead of the measured impact velocity to derive the mass of interstellar grains from the Ulysses and Galileo in-situ data. The revised mass distributions are steeper and thus contain less large grains than the ones that use measured impact velocities, but large grains still contribute significantly to the overall mass of the detected grains. The flux of interstellar grains with masses $> 10^{-14} {rm kg}$ is determined to be $1cdot 10^{-6} {rm m}^{-2} {rm s}^{-1}$. The comparison of radar data with the extrapolation of the Ulysses and Galileo mass distribution indicates that the very large ($m > 10^{-10} {rm kg}$) hyperbolic meteoroids detected by the radar are not kinematically related to the interstellar dust population detected by the spacecraft.
We aim at determining the spatial distribution of the gas and dust in star-forming regions and address their relative abundances in quantitative terms. We also examine the dust opacity exponent beta for spatial and/or temporal variations. Using mapping observations of the very dense rho Oph A core, we examined standard 1D and non-standard 3D methods to analyse data of far-infrared and submillimeter (submm) continuum radiation. The resulting dust surface density distribution can be compared to that of the gas. The latter was derived from the analysis of accompanying molecular line emission, observed with Herschel from space and with APEX from the ground. As a gas tracer we used N2H+, which is believed to be much less sensitive to freeze-out than CO and its isotopologues. Radiative transfer modelling of the N2H+(J=3-2) and (J=6-5) lines with their hyperfine structure explicitly taken into account provides solutions for the spatial distribution of the column density N(H2), hence the surface density distribution of the gas. The gas-to-dust mass ratio is varying across the map, with very low values in the central regions around the core SM 1. The global average, =88, is not far from the canonical value of 100, however. In rho Oph A, the exponent beta of the power-law description for the dust opacity exhibits a clear dependence on time, with high values of 2 for the envelope-dominated emission in starless Class -1 sources to low values close to 0 for the disk-dominated emission in Class III objects. beta assumes intermediate values for evolutionary classes in between. Since beta is primarily controlled by grain size, grain growth mostly occurs in circumstellar disks. The spatial segregation of gas and dust, seen in projection toward the core centre, probably implies that, like C18O, also N2H+ is frozen onto the grains.
The Ulysses spacecraft has been orbiting the Sun on a highly inclined ellipse almost perpendicular to the ecliptic plane (inclination 79 deg, perihelion distance 1.3 AU, aphelion distance 5.4 AU) since it encountered Jupiter in 1992. The in-situ dust detector on board continuously measured interstellar dust grains with masses up to 10^-13 kg, penetrating deep into the solar system. The flow direction is close to the mean apex of the Suns motion through the solar system and the grains act as tracers of the physical conditions in the local interstellar cloud (LIC). While Ulysses monitored the interstellar dust stream at high ecliptic latitudes between 3 and 5 AU, interstellar impactors were also measured with the in-situ dust detectors on board Cassini, Galileo and Helios, covering a heliocentric distance range between 0.3 and 3 AU in the ecliptic plane. The interstellar dust stream in the inner solar system is altered by the solar radiation pressure force, gravitational focussing and interaction of charged grains with the time varying interplanetary magnetic field. We review the results from in-situ interstellar dust measurements in the solar system and present Ulysses latest interstellar dust data. These data indicate a 30 deg shift in the impact direction of interstellar grains w.r.t. the interstellar helium flow direction, the reason of which is presently unknown.
The Ulysses spacecraft is orbiting the Sun on a highly inclined ellipse ($ i = 79^{circ}$, perihelion distance 1.3 AU, aphelion distance 5.4 AU). Between January 1996 and December 1999 the spacecraft was beyond 3 AU from the Sun and crossed the ecliptic plane at aphelion in May 1998. In this four-year period 218 dust impacts were recorded with the dust detector on board. We publish and analyse the complete data set of both raw and reduced data for particles with masses $rm 10^{-16} g$ to $rm 10^{-8}$ g. Together with 1477 dust impacts recorded between launch of Ulysses and the end of 1995 published earlier cite{gruen1995c,krueger1999b}, a data set of 1695 dust impacts detected with the Ulysses sensor between October 1990 and December 1999 is now available. The impact rate measured between 1996 and 1999 was relatively constant with about 0.2 impacts per day. The impact direction of the majority of the impacts is compatible with particles of interstellar origin, the rest are most likely interplanetary particles. The observed impact rate is compared with a model for the flux of interstellar dust particles. The flux of particles several micrometers in size is compared with the measurements of the dust instruments on board Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 beyond 3 AU (Humes 1980, JGR, 85, 5841--5852, 1980). Between 3 and 5 AU, Pioneer results predict that Ulysses should have seen five times more ($rm sim 10 mu m$ sized) particles than actually detected.
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