The Jovian meteoroid environment

Abstract

Meteoroid fluxes in interplanetary space at 5 AU and near Jupiter have been measured with the penetration detectors on Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. The data suggest that the size distribution of meteoroids at 5 AU is the same as that at 1 AU. Furthermore, the high flux observed near Jupiter appears due to meteoroids in orbit about the sun being gravitationally focused toward the planet. There is no indication of a large population of particles in orbit around Jupiter. Calculations show that the mass influx of meteoroids on Jupiter is 170 times that on the earth, but this does not have a significant effect on the energy balance of Jupiter. The high speed with which meteoroids enter the Jovian atmosphere causes them to be brighter than those on earth so that the number of visible meteors is 5800 times the number in the earth's atmosphere.