The Variability of Cosmic Dust Influx as Seen by the AIM Satellite

HR: 0800h
AN: SA21A-0257 [Abstracts]
TI: The Variability of Cosmic Dust Influx as Seen by the AIM Satellite
AU: * James, D
EM: David.James@colorado.edu
AF: LASP and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0392, United States
AU: Poppe, A
EM: poppe@lasp.colorado.edu
AF: LASP and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0392, United States
AU: Horanyi, M
EM: horanyi@colorado.edu
AF: LASP and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0392, United States
AU: Fentzke, J
EM: jonathan.fentzke@colorado.edu
AF: Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, United States
AU: Janches, D
EM: diego@cora.nwra.com
AF: CORA, NorthWest Research Associates, 3380 Mitchel Lane, Boulder, CO 80301, United States
AB: The Cosmic Dust Experiment (CDE) onboard the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission is a dust impact experiment to monitor the variability of the cosmic dust influx. It is based on permanently polarized thin plastic film sensors that generate an electrical signal when an impacting dust particle penetrates them. The total surface area is about 0.1 square meters, and the detection threshold is about a micron in particle radius. The variability of these small grains is assumed to follow the variability of the dominant 100 micron radius particles, hence the measured flux can be used in correlation studies with various Noctilucent (NLC) activity indexes. In this talk we will describe the CDE instrument. We will discuss our challenges in identifying the various noise sources that could possibly contaminate our science measurements, and also our initial science results about the spatial and temporal variability of dust fluxes entering our atmosphere. The results will be compared with expectations based on models, earlier in situ dust measurements, and radar observations.
UR: http://lasp.colorado.edu/aim/
DE: 2129 Interplanetary dust
DE: 2194 Instruments and techniques
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting