Orbital evolution of P\v{r}\'{i}bram and Neuschwanstein

The orbital evolution of the two meteorites P\v{r}\'{i}bram and Neuschwanstein on almost identical orbits and also several thousand clones were studied in the framework of the N-body problem for 5000 years into the past. The meteorites moved on very similar orbits during the whole investigated interval. We have also searched for photographic meteors and asteroids moving on similar orbits. There were 5 meteors found in the IAU MDC database and 6 NEAs with currently similar orbits to P\v{r}\'{i}bram and Neuschwanstein. However, only one meteor 161E1 and one asteroid 2002 QG46 had a similar orbital evolution over the last 2000 years.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 3 table

Interstellar Dust Inside and Outside the Heliosphere

In the early 1990s, after its Jupiter flyby, the Ulysses spacecraft identified interstellar dust in the solar system. Since then the in-situ dust detector on board Ulysses continuously monitored interstellar grains with masses up to 10e-13 kg, penetrating deep into the solar system. While Ulysses measured the interstellar dust stream at high ecliptic latitudes between 3 and 5 AU, interstellar impactors were also measured with the in-situ dust detectors on board Cassini, Galileo and Helios, covering a heliocentric distance range between 0.3 and 3 AU in the ecliptic plane. The interstellar dust stream in the inner solar system is altered by the solar radiation pressure force, gravitational focussing and interaction of charged grains with the time varying interplanetary magnetic field. The grains act as tracers of the physical conditions in the local interstellar cloud (LIC). Our in-situ measurements imply the existence of a population of 'big' interstellar grains (up to 10e-13 kg) and a gas-to-dust-mass ratio in the LIC which is a factor of > 2 larger than the one derived from astronomical observations, indicating a concentration of interstellar dust in the very local interstellar medium. Until 2004, the interstellar dust flow direction measured by Ulysses was close to the mean apex of the Sun's motion through the LIC, while in 2005, the data showed a 30 deg shift, the reason of which is presently unknown. We review the results from spacecraft-based in-situ interstellar dust measurements in the solar system and their implications for the physical and chemical state of the LIC.Comment: 10 pages, 2 b/w figures, 1 colour figure; submitted to Space Science Review

One year of Galileo dust data from the Jovian system: 1996

The dust detector system onboard Galileo records dust impacts in circumjovian space since the spacecraft has been injected into a bound orbit about Jupiter in December 1995. This is the sixth in a series of papers dedicated to presenting Galileo and Ulysses dust data. We present data from the Galileo dust instrument for the period January to December 1996 when the spacecraft completed four orbits about Jupiter (G1, G2, C3 and E4). Data were obtained as high resolution realtime science data or recorded data during a time period of 100 days, or via memory read-outs during the remaining times. Because the data transmission rate of the spacecraft is very low, the complete data set (i. e. all parameters measured by the instrument during impact of a dust particle) for only 2% (5353) of all particles detected could be transmitted to Earth; the other particles were only counted. Together with the data for 2883 particles detected during Galileo's interplanetary cruise and published earlier, complete data of 8236 particles detected by the Galileo dust instrument from 1989 to 1996 are now available. The majority of particles detected are tiny grains (about 10 nm in radius) originating from Jupiter's innermost Galilean moon Io. These grains have been detected throughout the Jovian system and the highest impact rates exceeded $\rm 100 min^{-1}$. A small number of grains has been detected in the close vicinity of the Galilean moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto which belong to impact-generated dust clouds formed by (mostly submicrometer sized) ejecta from the surfaces of the moons (Kr\"uger et al., Nature, 399, 558, 1999). Impacts of submicrometer to micrometer sized grains have been detected thoughout the Jovian system and especially in the region between the Galilean moons.Comment: accepted for Planetary and Space Science, 33 pages, 6 tables, 10 figure

Four years of Ulysses dust data: 1996 to 1999

The Ulysses spacecraft is orbiting the Sun on a highly inclined ellipse ($i = 79^{\circ}$, perihelion distance 1.3 AU, aphelion distance 5.4 AU). Between January 1996 and December 1999 the spacecraft was beyond 3 AU from the Sun and crossed the ecliptic plane at aphelion in May 1998. In this four-year period 218 dust impacts were recorded with the dust detector on board. We publish and analyse the complete data set of both raw and reduced data for particles with masses $\rm 10^{-16} g$ to $\rm 10^{-8}$ g. Together with 1477 dust impacts recorded between launch of Ulysses and the end of 1995 published earlier \cite{gruen1995c,krueger1999b}, a data set of 1695 dust impacts detected with the Ulysses sensor between October 1990 and December 1999 is now available. The impact rate measured between 1996 and 1999 was relatively constant with about 0.2 impacts per day. The impact direction of the majority of the impacts is compatible with particles of interstellar origin, the rest are most likely interplanetary particles. The observed impact rate is compared with a model for the flux of interstellar dust particles. The flux of particles several micrometers in size is compared with the measurements of the dust instruments on board Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 beyond 3 AU (Humes 1980, JGR, 85, 5841--5852, 1980). Between 3 and 5 AU, Pioneer results predict that Ulysses should have seen five times more ($\rm \sim 10 \mu m$ sized) particles than actually detected.Comment: accepted by Planetary and Space Science, 22 pages, 8 figures (1 colour figure

Tides in colliding galaxies

Long tails and streams of stars are the most noticeable upshots of galaxy collisions. Their origin as gravitational, tidal, disturbances has however been recognized only less than fifty years ago and more than ten years after their first observations. This Review describes how the idea of galactic tides emerged, in particular thanks to the advances in numerical simulations, from the first ones that included tens of particles to the most sophisticated ones with tens of millions of them and state-of-the-art hydrodynamical prescriptions. Theoretical aspects pertaining to the formation of tidal tails are then presented. The third part of the review turns to observations and underlines the need for collecting deep multi-wavelength data to tackle the variety of physical processes exhibited by collisional debris. Tidal tails are not just stellar structures, but turn out to contain all the components usually found in galactic disks, in particular atomic / molecular gas and dust. They host star-forming complexes and are able to form star-clusters or even second-generation dwarf galaxies. The final part of the review discusses what tidal tails can tell us (or not) about the structure and content of present-day galaxies, including their dark components, and explains how tidal tails may be used to probe the past evolution of galaxies and their mass assembly history. On-going deep wide-field surveys disclose many new low-surface brightness structures in the nearby Universe, offering great opportunities for attempting galactic archeology with tidal tails.Comment: 46 pages, 13 figures, Review to be published in "Tidal effects in Astronomy and Astrophysics", Lecture Notes in Physics. Comments are most welcom

South-North and radial traverses through the interplanetary dust cloud

Identical in situ dust detectors are flown on board the Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft. They record impacts of micrometeoroids in the ecliptic plane at heliocentric distances from 0.7 to 5.4 AU and in a plane almost perpendicular to the ecliptic from -79 degrees to +79 degrees ecliptic latitude. The combination of both Ulysses and Galileo measurements yields information about the radial and latitudinal distributions of micron- and submicron-sized dust in the Solar System. Two types of dust particles were found to dominate the dust flux in interplanetary space. Interplanetary micrometeoroids covering a wide mass range from 10(-16) to 10(-6) g are recorded mostly inside 3 AU and at latitudes below 30 degrees. Interstellar grains with masses between 10(-14) and 10(-12) g have been positively identified outside 3 AU near the ecliptic plane and outside 1.8 AU at high ecliptic latitudes (>50 degrees). Interstellar grains move on hyperbolic trajectories through the planetary system and constitute the dominant dust flux (1.5 X 10(-4) m(-2) sec(-1)) in the outer Solar System and at high ecliptic latitudes. To compare and analyze the Galileo and Ulysses data sets, a new model is developed based on J. Geophys. Res. 98, 17029-17048, Divine's (1993, ''five populations of interplanetary meteoroids'' model. Both models describe the interplanetary meteoroid environment in terms of dust populations on distinct orbits. Taking into account the measured velocities and the effect of radiation pressure on small particles (described by the ratio of radiation pressure force to gravity, beta), we define four populations of meteoroids on elliptical orbits and one population on hyperbolic orbit that can fit the micrometeoroid flux observed by Galileo and Ulysses. Micrometeoroids with masses greater than 10(-10) g and negligible radiation pressure (beta = 0) orbit the Sun on low to moderately eccentric orbits and with low inclinations (less than or equal to 30 degrees). Populations of smaller particles with mean masses of 10(-11) g (beta = 0.3), 10(-13) g (beta = 0.8), and 5 X 10(-15) g (beta = 0.3), respectively, have components with high eccentricities and have increasingly wider inclination distributions with decreasing mass. Similarities among the orbit distributions of the small particle populations on bound orbits suggest that all are genetically related and are part of an overall micrometeoroid complex that prevails in the inner Solar System. The high-eccentricity component of the small particle populations may actually be beta-meteoroids which are not well characterized by our measurements. Our modeling suggests further that the interstellar dust flux is not reduced at Ulysses' perihelion distance (1.3 AU) and that it contributes about 30% of the total dust flux observed there

Three years of Ulysses dust data: 1993-1995

The Ulysses spacecraft is orbiting the Sun on a highly inclined ellipse (i = 79 degrees). After its Jupiter flyby in 1992 at a heliocentric distance of 5.4 AU, the spacecraft reapproached the inner solar system, flew over the Sun's south polar region in September 1994, crossed the ecliptic plane at a distance of 1.3 AU in March 1995, and flew over the Sun's north polar resion in July 1995. We report on dust impact data obtained with the dust detector onboard Ulysses between January 1993 and December 1995. Wt publish and analyse the complete data set of 509 recorded impacts of dust particles with masses between 10-(16) g-10(-7) Together with 968 dust impacts from launch until the end of 1992 published earlier (Grun et al., 1995c), information about 1477 particles detected with the Ulysses sensor between October 1990 and December 1995 is now available. The impact rate measured between 1993 and 1995 stayed relatively constant at about 0.4 impacts per day and varied by less than a factor of ten. Most of the impacts recorded outside about 3.5 AU are compatible with particles of interstellar origin. Two populations of interplanetary particles have been recognized: big micrometer-sized particles close to the ecliptic plane and small sub-micrometer-sized particles at high ecliptic latitudes. The observed impact rate is compared with a model for the flux of interstellar dust particles which gives relatively good agreement with the observed impact rate. No change in the instrument's noise characteristics or degradation of the channeltron could be revealed during the three-year period

Dust measurements in the Jovian magnetosphere

Dust measurements have been obtained with the dust detector onboard the Galileo spacecraft inside a distance of about 60R(J) from Jupiter (Jupiter radius, R-J = 71, 492 km) during two periods of about 8 days around Galileo's closest approaches to Ganymede on 27 June and on 6 Sept 1996. The impact rate of submicrometer-sized particles fluctuated by a factor of several hundred with a period of about 10 hours, implying that their trajectories are strongly affected by the interaction with the Jovian magnetic field. Concentrations of small dust impacts were detected at the times of Ganymede closest approaches that could be secondary ejecta particles generated upon impact of other particles onto Ganymede's surface. Micrometer-sized dust particles, which could be on bound orbits about Jupiter, are concentrated in the inner Jovian system inside about 20R(J) from Jupiter