Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 8 May 1998:
Vol. 280. no. 5365, p. 797
DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5365.797c
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

This Week in Science

Every year about 107 kilograms of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) fall to Earth from the tenuous cloud of dust (called the zodiacal cloud) orbiting the sun in the inner solar system. Kortenkamp and Dermott (p. 874; see the news story by Kerr, (p. 828) have modeled the flux of IDPs to Earth during the last 1.2 million years; they assumed that the bulk of this material is derived from the Eos, Themis, and Koronis asteroid families. A maximum flux of IDPs occurred every 100,000 years, consistent with control by variations in Earth's eccentricity and the idea that the 100,000-year peak in helium-3 concentrations in sea-floor sediments are controlled by the IDP flux. They also expect that large fluxes may occur every 107 years because of collisions between asteroids in the asteroid belt.




To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)