A Preliminary Analysis Places a Portion of the Dust Grains Detected by PSP on Prograde, Low-eccentricity Orbits in the Ecliptic

Parker Solar Probe's FIELDS instrument provides a measure of the dust impact rate on the spacecraft with a full-coverage summary of the voltages recorded by the spacecraft's antennas. From consecutively sampled periods of 1 minute or 1/10 minute duration throughout PSP's orbit, FIELDS stores the maximum amplitude measured by each active antenna. The occurrence of a dust impact during a given period can be identified by these amplitudes exceeding a few tens of mV, and an impact's location on the spacecraft can be approximated using the differential amplitudes between antennas. In the portion of PSP's orbit between .3 AU heliocentric distance and perihelion, the variation in the detected grains' impact locations aligns with the rotation of the incident direction of prograde, low-eccentricity orbits lying in the ecliptic.