Magnetic Field Modulated Dust Streams From Jupiter in Interplanetary Space

The Ulysses (1992), Galileo (1995) and Cassini (2000) spacecrafts have confirmed the existence of high velocity (>200 km/s) collimated streams of charged (~5V) dust grains escaping from the Jovian magnetosphere to the Interplanetary space, whose dynamics is mainly dominated by the interplanetary Magnetic field (IMF). With Cassini, a similar phenomenon was observed at Saturn as well. There is strong evidence that these Jovian dust streams are closely related to the solar wind and particularly to compression regions, either Corotating interaction regions (CIRs) or -to a minor extent - Coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Actually dust streams seem ultimately to be generated by those strong enough events (B>~2nT).