Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM): A Meteoroid Model for the Inner Solar System

A permanent, asymmetric dust cloud around the Moon

“…This observed anisotropy is in contrast to the roughly isotropic ejecta clouds engulfing the Galilean satellites, where the vast gravitational influence of Jupiter is efficiently randomizing the orbital elements of the bombarding interplanetary dust particles 15 . The anisotropic ejecta production is consistent with existing models of the interplanetary dust distributions near the Earth that combine in situ dust measurements, visible and infrared observations of the zodiacal cloud, as well as ground-based visual and radar observations of meteors in the atmosphere 16,17 . The dust production on the lunar surface is dominated by particles of cometary origin, as opposed to slower asteroidal dust particles, which follow near-circular orbits as they migrate towards the Sun, owing to Poynting-Robertson drag 18 .…”

“…We evaluated equation (9) using both NASA's MEM 16 and ESA's IMEM 17 models, which agree well near one astronomical unit. The flux F and the predicted mass production rates M 1 (LT, t) are shown in Extended Data Fig.…”

“…10). The Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX) began its measurements on 16 October 2013 and detected a total of approximately 140,000 dust hits during about 80 days of cumulative observation time out of 184 total days by the end of the mission on 18 April 2014. LDEX was designed to explore the ejecta cloud generated by sporadic interplanetary dust impacts, including possible intermittent density enhancements during meteoroid showers, and to search for the putative regions with high densities of 0.1-mm-scale dust particles above the terminators.…”

Reformulation of Schiaparelli’s theory on flux of a meteoroid stream

“…We should consider the probable meteoroid impact harm to satellites and spacecraft when they are in near Earth space. In fact, many works about the gravitational influence on a meteoroid stream have been done (for example, Opik, 1951;McNamara et al, 2004;Jones and Poole, 2007). In this paper, we only follow Schiaparelli's theory, process it over again and extend the theory to be applicable in near Earth space.…”

Estimating the number of impact flashes visible on the Moon from an orbiting camera

“…Several detailed meteoroid models are currently available, e.g., Dikarev et al (2005) or McNamara et al (2004). However, for a first assessment of the dust flux, the simple model of Grün et al (1985) is sufficient.…”