Title:

The Comets, the Dust, and the Solar Wind




Ingrid Mann
Institute of Planetology
Muenster University 
Germany



Abstract:

Measurements of cometary dust composition show enhanced
abundances of light elements, C,H,O,N, compared to typical
meteoritical material generated from asteroids. This points to
the existence of organic compounds in cometary dust. We recently
established a model to describe the light scattering properties
of cometary dust that accounts for the presence of organics and
also agrees with the composition of interstellar dust as the
initial material. Our studies of the near solar dust cloud have
shown that it is most likely locally refilled by collisional
fragmentation of cometary meteoroids. We have recently shown
that the collisions vaporize parts of the dust material. The
dust material contributes to the inner source pick-up ion
population in the solar wind that was discovered during the
Ulysses space mission. If our model for the generation of
pick-up ions is correct, then the measurements imply that
cometary dust contains organic refractory compounds that can
survive high temperatures in the vicinity of the Sun.