2017/02/10 by Takahiro Ueda, Hiroshi Kobayashi, Taku Takeuchi +3 · 13 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Asteroid #Asteroid belt #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Brightness #Cosmic dust #Interplanetary dust cloud #Interplanetary medium #Orbit (dynamics) #Spacecraft Dynamics and Control #Surface brightness #Zodiacal light #astro-ph.EP
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-3881/aa5ff3
published in The Astronomical Journal 153(5), 232 (Institute of Physics) · 31 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in AJ
arxiv created 2017/02/10 · openalex created_date 2017/03/03 · openalex publication_date 2017/04/27 · arxiv updated 2017/05/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract In the solar system, interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) originating mainly from asteroid collisions and cometary activities drift to Earth orbit due to Poynting–Robertson drag. We analyzed the thermal emission from IDPs that was observed by the first Japanese infrared astronomical satellite, AKARI . The observed surface brightness in the trailing direction of the Earth orbit is 3.7% greater than that in the leading direction in the 9 μ m band and 3.0% in the 18 μ m band. In order to reveal dust properties causing leading–trailing surface brightness asymmetry, we numerically integrated orbits of the Sun, the Earth, and a dust particle as a restricted three-body problem including radiation from the Sun. The initial orbits of particles are determined according to the orbits of main-belt asteroids or Jupiter-family comets. Orbital trapping in mean motion resonances results in a significant leading–trailing asymmetry so that intermediate sized dust (∼10–100 μ m) produces a greater asymmetry than zodiacal light. The leading–trailing surface brightness difference integrated over the size distribution of the asteroidal dust is obtained to be 27.7% and 25.3% in the 9 μ m and 18 μ m bands, respectively. In contrast, the brightness difference for cometary dust is calculated as 3.6% and 3.1% in the 9 μ m and 18 μ m bands, respectively, if the maximum dust radius is set to be s max = 3000 μ m. Taking into account these values and their errors, we conclude that the contribution of asteroidal dust to the zodiacal infrared emission is less than ∼10%, while cometary dust of the order of 1 mm mainly accounts for the zodiacal light in infrared.