The influence of sputtering and sublimation on Kuiper belt dust trajectories
- 1UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Department of Physics and Technology, Tromsø, Norway (ingrid.b.mann@uit.no)
- 2Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
- 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently exploring the outer solar system and passes the Kuiper Belt. The Student Dust Counter (SDC) onboard New Horizons has measured the flux of interplanetary dust grains throughout nearly the entire mission so far. The observed dust flux around 50 AU at the expected edge of the the Kuipe belt is higher than predicted. A possible explanation could lie in the trajetcries of the dust particles that can be pushed out to large distances by radiation pressure force. We investigate the trajectories of ice particles in the Kuiper belt which are more strongly influenced by radiation pressure when their sizes are reduced, due to mass loss caused by sublimation, solar wind sputtering and photo sputtering. The results suggest that the changing size of the particles may lead to a more stable and confined dust ring in the Solar System's Kuiper Belt.
How to cite: Mann, I., Poppe, A., Gjelsvik, A., and Li, A.: The influence of sputtering and sublimation on Kuiper belt dust trajectories, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-15528, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-15528, 2024.
