Definitions
Micrometeorite: A micrometeorite is a small particle of rock in space, usually weighing less than a gram that enters the Earth's atmosphere or falls to Earth.
Meteoroid: A meteoroid is a sand-to-boulder sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere is called a meteor. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite.
Asteroid: Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun or planets, especially in the inner Solar System; they are smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids.
Meteorite: A meteoroid or a part of it that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere and reaches the ground and survives impact.
Meteor: The visible streak of light that occurs when a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, known popularly as a shooting star or falling star.
Comet: A small solar system body bigger than a meteoroid that, when close enough to the Sun, exhibits a visible coma, and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus. Comet nuclei are themselves loose collections of ice, dust and small rocky particles.
- Wikipedia
Basics
A micrometeoroid or micrometeorite is a tiny meteoroid; a small particle of rock in space, usually weighing less than a gram. A micrometeor or micrometeorite is such a particle that enters the Earth's atmosphere or falls to Earth.
Micrometeoroids are very small, typically metallic, pieces of rock broken off from larger chunks of rock and debris, often dating back to the formation of the solar system. Micrometeoroids are extremely common in space. Tiny particles are a major contributor to space weathering processes. When they impact the surface of the Moon, or any airless body (Mercury, the asteroids, etc), the resulting melting and vaporization causes darkening and other optical changes in the regolith. In order to understand the micrometeoroid population better, a number of spacecraft (including Lunar Orbiter 1, Luna 3, Mars 1 and Pioneer 5) have carried micrometeoroid detectors.
In 1957 Hans Pettersson conducted one of the first direct measurements of the fall of space dust on the Earth, estimating it to be 14,300,000 tons per year. If this were true, then the Moon would be covered to a very great depth as there are limited forms of erosion to remove this material. In 1961 Arthur C. Clarke popularized this possibility in his novel A Fall of Moondust. This was cause for some concern among the groups attempting to land on the Moon, so a series of new studies followed to better characterize the issue. This included the launch of several spacecraft designed to directly measure the micrometeorite flux (Pegasus satellite program) or directly measure the dust on the surface of the Moon (Surveyor Program). These showed that the flux was much lower than earlier estimates, around 10,000 to 20,000 tons per year, and that the surface of the Moon is relatively rocky.
Micrometeoroids have less stable orbits than meteoroids, due to their greater surface area to mass ratio. Micrometeoroids that fall to Earth can provide information on millimeter scale heating events in the solar nebula. Micrometeorites (as they are known upon arrival at the Earth's surface) can only be collected in areas where there is no terrestrial sedimentation, typically polar regions. Ice is collected and then melted and filtered so the micrometeorites can be extracted under a microscope.
Sufficiently small micrometeoroids avoid significant heating on entry into the earth's atmosphere. Collection of such particles by high flying aircraft began in the 1970s, since which time these samples of stratosphere-collected interplanetary dust (called Brownlee particles before their extraterrestrial origin was confirmed) have become an important component of the extraterrestrial materials available for study in laboratories on earth.
Micrometeoroids pose a significant threat to space exploration. Their velocities relative to a spacecraft in orbit can be on the order of kilometers per second, and resistance to micrometeoroid impact is a significant design challenge for spacecraft and space suit designers. While the tiny sizes of most micrometeoroids limits the damage incurred, the high velocity impacts will constantly degrade the outer casing of spacecraft in a manner analogous to sandblasting. Long term exposure can threaten the functionality of spacecraft systems.
Impacts by small objects with extremely high velocity are a current area of research in terminal ballistics. Accelerating objects up to such velocities is difficult; current techniques include linear motors and shaped charges. The risk is especially high for objects in space for long periods of time, such as satellites. They also pose major engineering challenges in theoretical low-cost lift systems such as rotovators, space elevators, and orbital airships.
Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)
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