CAPTURE OF INTERPLANETARY AND INTERSTELLAR DUST BY THE JOVIAN MAGNETOSPHERE

Interplanetary and interstellar dust grains entering Jupiter's magneto sphere form a detectable diffuse faint ring of exogenic material, This ring is composed of particles in the size range of 0.5 to 1.5 microme ters on retrograde and prograde orbits in a 4:1 ratio, with semimajor axes 3 < a < 20 jovian radii, eccentricities 0.1 < e < 0.3, and inclin ations i less than or similar to 20 degrees or i greater than or simil ar to 160 degrees, The size range and the orbital characteristics are consistent with in situ detections of micrometer-sized grains by the G alileo dust detector, and the measured rates match the number densitie s predicted from numerical trajectory integrations.