Charged dust in the outer planetary magnetospheres

Abstract

Interplanetary dust grains entering the Jovian plasmasphere become charged, and those in a certain size range get magneto-gravitationally trapped in the corotating plasmasphere. The trajectories of such dust grains intersect the orbits of one or more of the Galilean satellites. Orbital calculations of micron sized dust grains show that they impact the outermost satellite Callisto predominantly on its leading face, while they impact the inner three - Io, Europa and Ganymede - predominantly on the trailing face. These results are offered as an explanation of the observed brightness asymmetry between the leading and trailing faces of the outer three Galilean satellites. The albedo of Io is likely to be determined by its volcanism.