On the Amount of Dust in the Asteroid Belt

Abstract

Calculations of upper limits to the quantity of small particles in the asteroid belt are based on (1) the brightness of the counterglow coupled with observations and theory for the zodiacal cloud near Earth's orbit and (2) the destruction and erosion of asteroidal particles as they spiral toward the Sun because of solar radiation via the Poynting-Robertson effect. These calculations place the likely upper limit on asteroidal space particle density at the order of 5 to 10 times and the hazard to space vehicles at 2 to 4 times those near Earth's orbit. No such evidence indicates, however, that the hazard from small particles is actually much greater in the asteroid belt.