Parker Solar Probe sees the orbital dust ring of Venus at first glance

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission gave scientists their first complete look at Venus ‘orbital dust ring, a collection of microscopic dust particles circulating around the Sun along Venus’ orbit. Although previous missions made some observations of Venus’ orbital dust ring, the Parker Solar Probe images are the first to show the planet’s dust ring for almost its entire 360-degree radius around the Sun.

The Parker Solar Probe WISPR instrument – short for Large Field Image for the Solar Probe – is designed to study the solar wind, the material that constantly rises in the sun. The space is full of dust, which reflects so much light that it usually shines at least a hundred times stronger than the solar wind. (The light reflected from space dust is what creates the zodiacal light, sometimes visible from Earth as a faint column of light rising up from the horizon.)

To see the solar wind with WISPR, scientists use image processing to remove dust and stars from the images. This process worked so well that the orbital ring of Venus was also reduced – which appears as a shining band that stretches over the images. Only after the Parker Solar Probe performed rolling maneuvers to manage its momentum on the way to its next solar flyby, which changed the orientation of its chambers, did the static dust ring be noticed by scientists. Based on the relative brightness, scientists estimate that dust along the orbit of Venus is about 10% denser than in neighboring regions. The results were published on April 7, 2021 in The astrophysics journal.

The German-American space probe Helios and NASA’s STEREO mission – short for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory – made both previous observations of the dust ring along the orbit of Venus. These measurements allowed scientists to develop new models of the origins of dust along the orbit of Venus. The sensitive imagers and the unique Parker Solar Probe orbit gave scientists an unprecedented look at Venus’ dust ring – something the scientific team has been aiming for since the early days of the mission.

As Parker Solar Probe flies closer and closer to the Sun during its mission, the scientific team also expects to make the first observations of a dust-free area, long hypothesized, a region close to the Sun where dust it was heated and vaporized by intense sunlight. If there is a dust-free area near the Sun – an idea supported by regions of thin dust that Parker Solar Probe has already observed from afar – this would not only confirm theories about the interaction between our star and its nearby dust, but would it could also help astrophysicists studying more distant objects: just as space dust can interfere with the sight of the solar wind, it can also confuse measurements of stars and galaxies.

However, for many scientists, the dust itself is what is interesting. For example, the exact origin of the dust that fills the solar system is not an established science. For decades, scientists have largely believed that dust is the remains of comets and asteroids – but new research using data from NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter suggests that dust storms on Mars could be the source of much of the dust. solar system.

Space dust can also form the building blocks of stars and planets, carry gas between star systems, and provide a favorable environment for young planets. These were some of the questions in mind for scientists on the DUST sound rocket mission – short for Determining Unknown but Significant Traits – which was launched in 2019 to investigate how dust grains coagulate in space microgravity.