Examination of surfaces exposed for more than five and a half years, from detectors with unique attitude stabilisation relative to the orbital velocity vector, offers scope for examining definitively the sources of hypervelocity space particulates. Surfaces reveal discrete crater morphologies, crater size distributions and incident flux distributions. Discrete crater studies will later also reveal the chemistry of residues which can, especially via the capture cell principle, lead to elemental analysis of micron dimensioned particles.

First analyses of the flux data from the thin foil perforation experiments (MAP) involve a study of the statistics of the forward (ram) direction, the rear (trailing) direction and the space pointing direction. Modelling of the dynamics of geocentrically bound and unbound orbits yields evidence that the characteristics of the particles, and hence probably their source, change over the particle size range measured by the experiment. Smaller particles (< 1 μm diameter) have lower velocities which could include geocentrically bound particulates, whereas the larger particles (5-10 μm diameter) can be identified with “cosmic” particles of interplanetary or interstellar origin.

Interplanetary and near-earth space contains solid objects whose size distribution continuously covers the interval from submicron sized particles to km sized asteroids or comets. Two French experiments partly devoted to the detection of cosmic dust have been flown recently in space. One on the NASA Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), and one on the Soviet MIR Space Station. A variety of sensors and collecting devices will make possible the study of cosmic particles after recovery of exposed material. Flux mass distribution is expected to be derived from craters counts, with a good accuracy. Remnants of particles, suitable for chemical identification are expected to be found within stacked foil detectors. Discrimination between extraterrestrial particles and man-made orbital debris will be possible.

The Munich Dust Counter (MDC) is a scientific experiment on board the MUSES-A mission of Japan measuring cosmic dust. The satellite HITEN of this mission has been launched on January 24th, 1990 from Kagoshima Space Center. Here the present status of the MDC experiment is summarized. The number of dust particles measured so far is presented together with first and preliminary results of flux calculations and spatial as well as directional distributions of cosmic dust particles measured until July 25, 1990. A clear evidence of particles coming from the inner solar system (beta-meteoroids) already has been found. These are compared to particles coming from the apex direction.

In-situ measurements of interplanetary dust have been performed in the heliocentric distance range from 0.3 AU out to 18 AU. Due to their small sensitive areas (typically 0.01 m2 for the highly sensitive impact ionization sensors) or low mass sensitivities (≥10−9g of the large area penetration detectors) previous instruments recorded only a few 100 impacts during their lifetimes. Nevertheless, important information on the distribution of dust in interplanetary space has been obtained between 0.3 and 18 AU distance from the Sun. The Galileo dust detector combines the high mass sensitivity of impact ionization detectors (10−15 g) together with a large sensitive area (0.1 m2). The Galileo spacecraft was launched on October 18, 1989 and is on its solar system cruise towards Jupiter. Initial measurements of the dust flux from 0.7 to 1.2 AU are presented.

The NASA Solar Probe mission will be one of the most exciting dust missions ever flown and will lead to a revolutionary advance in our understanding of dust within our solar system. Solar Probe will map the dust environment from the orbit of Jupiter (5 AU), to within 4 solar radii of the sun’s center. The region between 0.3 AU and 4 Rs has never been visited before, so the 10 days that the spacecraft spends during each (of the two) orbit is purely exploratory in nature. Solar Probe will also reach heliographic latitudes as high as ~ 15 to 28 above (below) the ecliptic on its trajectory inbound (outbound) to (from) the sun. This, in addition to the ESA/NASA Ulysses mission, will help determine the out-of-the-ecliptic dust environment. A post-perihelion burn will reduce the satellite orbital period to 2.5 years about the sun. A possible extended mission would allow data reception for 2 more revolutions, mapping out a complete solar cycle. Because the near-solar dust environment is not well understood (or is controversial at best), and it is very important to have better knowledge of the dust environment to protect Solar Probe from high velocity dust hits, we urgently request the scientific community to obtain further measurements of the near-solar dust properties. One prime opportunity is the July 1991 solar eclipse.

This paper introduces a kind of cosmic dust collecting technique and describes in detail the structure of the collector, the balloon-basket system and concerning experimental skill.

A simple dynamic model to investigate the relative fluxes and particle velocities on a spacecraft’s different faces is presented. The results for LDEF are consistent with a predominantly interplanetary origin for the larger particulates, but a sizable population of orbital particles with sizes capable of penetrating foils of thickness <30μm. Data from experiments over the last 30 years do not show the rise in flux expected if these were space debris. The possibility of a population of natural orbital particulates awaits confirmation from chemical residue analysis.

If the impact record upon LDEF is to be interpreted so as to determine the flux, orbits, sizes and compositions of natural meteoroids and dust, and space debris, then it is necessary to relate the microcraters and perforations recorded to the likely source orbit of the particle in each case. Here a single-particle approach is used to calculate the relative impact probabilities upon six orthogonal faces of LDEF for particles coming from heliocentric orbits confined to the ecliptic; the results are presented as functions of impact velocity and impact angle for each face. The flux from geocentric orbits to the Space-and Earth-pointing faces is much lower than to the other faces; experiments positioned on those faces are thus likely to be less contaminated by space debris. Particles from heliocentric orbits can impact both the Space and Earth faces, but the latter is less likely to be hit due to the shadowing effect of the planet. The cratering ratios for the East (or leading) face compared to the West (or trailing) and the Earth-directed faces are strongly dependent upon the velocities of the particles and can therefore indicate of the velocity distribution of meteoroids and interplanetary dust.

The Munich Dust Counter (MDC) is a scientific experiment on board of the MUSES-A mission of Japan. It is the result of a cooperation between the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan and the Chair of Astronautics of the Technische Universität München (TUM) of Germany. The MDC is an impact ionization detector designed to determine mass and velocity of cosmic dust. Here a short overview over the MUSES-A mission is given to show the measurement situation of the MDC experiment. The measurement principle of the instrument together with a discussion of the scientific objectives and the design of the experiment is summarized.

We report preliminary analytical electron microscope (AEM) analysis of nearly 300 stratospheric particles collected using balloon-borne collectors at 34-36 km altitude. The particles are predominantly silica, plagioclase feldspar, Mg, Fe-silicates and rare barite, metal oxides, and unidentified Fe, Ni, Zn, and Pb particles. The majority of these generally submicron-sized particles are comparable to volcanic particles collected at 20 km altitude from the 1982 eruption of the El Chichon volcano. Because of the uniqueness in altitude and collected particle sizes the collection may also contain interplanetary dust particles of types poorly represented in present collections.

In order to study large-scaled cosmic matter accretion events in the past, Ir enriched layers at C-T and other geological boundaries and dated sedimental cores have been searched by many scientists. In this work, Iridium contents and the ratios of (Co/Fe) in two dated, respective layers of the cores are determined. These samples were dated fortunately with the paleomagnetic and also with the cosmogenic Be-10 methods. Ir enrichments are found at (0.660 ± 0.030) My before present.

A great number of microtektites were found in core collected from North Pacific. Because abundant microtektites are restricted to a 20-30 cm thick zone of core, we called this zone is miicrotektite layer. The age of sediments concentrated microtektites is from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene epoch. Research results indicate that these microtektites are similar to the North American tektites and the Australasian tektites, but they have the unique property on the chemistry.

The fine grained mineralogy and petrography of anhydrous “pyroxene” and “olivine” classes of chondritic interplanetary dust have been investigated by numerous electron microscopic studies. The “pyroxene” interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) are porous, unequilibrated assemblages of mineral grains, metal, glass, and carbonaceous material. They contain enstatite whiskers, FeNi carbides, and high-Mn olivines and pyroxenes, all of which are likely to be well preserved products of nebular gas reactions. Solar flare tracks are prominent in most “pyroxene” IDPs, indicating that they were not strongly heated during atmospheric entry. The “olivine” IDPs are coarse grained, equilibrated mineral assemblages that have probably experienced strong heating. Since most “olivine” IDPs do not contain tracks, it is possible that this heating occurred during atmospheric entry.

Interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) characterized by chondritic composition can be divided into two principal groups, anhydrous and hydrated. This paper summarizes recent results of mineralogical and petrological studies dealing with the IDPs of hydrated type. Studies on mineralogical characteristics, infrared absorption spectra, and isotopic properties of the hydrated particles have suggested that they are primitive and may contain surviving interstellar material. The hydrated IDPs consist in major part of layer silicates and resemble CI and CM carbonaceous chondrites. Mineralogical and chemical data of both IDPs and carbonaceous chondrites have accumulated, and it is now possible to compare the mineralogies of the IDPs and the meteorites in considerable detail. Evidence was found that a significant proportion of the hydrated IDPs have been processed by aqueous alteration, and the nature of the alteration resembles that of similarly affected meteorites. The mineralogical and chemical data provide important clues to the possible origins of IDPs.

In order to examine the effect of total pressure on vaporization of alkalis (Na, K, Rb) from a partially molten chondritic material, heating experiments were carried out under various He gas pressures (~10−5-~10−1torr) at 1300°C. The rate of vaporization decreased in the order of Na > K > Rb with the increasing of the pressure, and reached a minimum at ~10−1torr.

Condensation experiments were performed in the simple but most fundamental system Mg-Si-O-H with forsterite vaporization source. At temperatures above about 1000°C, euhedral crystals of forsterite (Mg2SiO4) of a few μm were formed. These crystals are similar to olivines in Allende matrix. At temperatures below about 1000°C, whiskers of forsterite and enstatite (MgSiO3) were formed by vapor-liquid-solid growth mechanism. These whiskers are different from enstatite whiskers in interplanetary dust, which were probably formed at small super coolings.

We found that cubic ice is transformed below 70 k to amorphous ice by ultraviolet irradiation, whereas no change in structure is observed at temperatures above 70 K, regardless of the irradiation time. Experimental results can be interpreted by theoretical consideration of nucleation and growth of cubic ice in amorphous ice. We also discuss the evolution of ice grains in space on the basis of the experimental results.

Laboratory data on cosmic dust analogue materials are compared with recent results obtained by means of spectroscopy and mass spectrometry on cometary dust, meteorites and interplanetary dust. Their actual chemical and physical properties can be further clarified, as well as possible links with interstellar dust.

Amorphous olivines synthesized by evaporation method show two very broad bands at 10-11 μm and 17.5-19 μm, which resemble the spectra of symbiotic stars. On the other hand, amorphous pyroxenes produced by the same method show two broad bands at 9.5-10.3 μ and 20-22 μ which are narrower than that of amorphous olivine. The features of amorphous olivine were easily altered by heating or hydration, and the peak wavelength of 18 μm band was easily shifted to longer wavelengths.

A vacuum evaporation technique has been used to produce thin, optical quality films of samples of Type II kerogen and of insoluble organic residue from the Murchison meteorite. Using these films, optical constants have been measured from 0.15 to 40 μm for kerogen, and from 2.5 to 40 μm for the Murchison residue. The infrared absorption properties of these materials show many similarities, although Murchison residue is more opaque throughout the infrared than is kerogen, and shows no distinct aliphatic absorptions.