Jim C. P. Liou

Solar wind magnetic field bending of Jovian dust trajectories.

From September 1991 to October 1992, the cosmic dust detector on the Ulysses spacecraft recorded 11 short bursts, or streams, of dust. These dust grains emanated from the jovian system, and their trajectories were strongly affected by solar wind magnetic field forces. Analyses of the on-board measurements of these fields, and of stream approach directions, show that stream-associated dust grain masses are of the order of 10−18 gram and dust grain velocities exceed 200 kilometers per second. These masses and velocities are, respectively, about 103 times less massive and 5 to 10 times faster than earlier reported.

Detection of asteroidal dust particles from known families in near‐Earth orbits

The orbital evolution of dust particles with two different sizes (diameters equal to 4 and 9 microns) originating from the Eos, Koronis, and Themis asteroidal families was studied. All the planetary perturbations, radiation pressure, Poynting-Robertson light drag, and corpuscular solar wind effects are included in the calculation. It is concluded that for particles having diameters ranging from 4 to 9 microns, Eos particles are quite different in orbital elements from Themis and Koronis particles. For Koronis and Themis particles, the best times to collect them are around April and October.