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Sources of cosmic dust in the Earth's atmosphere
Author(s) -
CarrilloSánchez J. D.,
Nesvorný D.,
Pokorný P.,
Janches D.,
Plane J. M. C.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2016gl071697
Subject(s) - zodiacal light , atmosphere (unit) , jupiter (rocket family) , physics , cosmic cancer database , solar system , astronomy , astrobiology , cosmic ray , asteroid , comet , flux (metallurgy) , astrophysics , atmospheric sciences , meteorology , materials science , space shuttle , metallurgy
Abstract There are four known sources of dust in the inner solar system: Jupiter Family comets, asteroids, Halley Type comets, and Oort Cloud comets. Here we combine the mass, velocity, and radiant distributions of these cosmic dust populations from an astronomical model with a chemical ablation model to estimate the injection rates of Na and Fe into the Earth's upper atmosphere, as well as the flux of cosmic spherules to the surface. Comparing these parameters to lidar observations of the vertical Na and Fe fluxes above 87.5 km, and the measured cosmic spherule accretion rate at South Pole, shows that Jupiter Family Comets contribute (80 ± 17)% of the total input mass (43 ± 14 t d −1 ), in good accord with Cosmic Background Explorer and Planck observations of the zodiacal cloud.