Inventory of Interstellar (ISD) and Interplanetary Dust (IDP) at 1 AU
Journal Article
Overview
abstract
The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) is scheduled to launch in 2025, to be stationed at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point with a combination of 10 in-situ and remote sensing instruments. A primary science goal of  IMAP is to improve our understanding of the composition and properties of the local interstellar medium. The local interstellar medium contains plasma, magnetic fields, neutral atoms, cosmic rays, and dust which all influence the heliosphere through interconnected time-dependent and multi-scale processes. The Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX) instrument onboard IMAP will measure the flux, size distribution, and composition of interstellar dust particles (ISD), characterizing the inflowing solid matter from the local interstellar medium reaching the inner heliosphere. IDEX will determine whether the composition of the contemporary local interstellar cloud's dust population is consistent with being the feedstock for the formation of the Solar System. In addition to heliospheric science goals, IDEX  will also detect the shared pool of interplanetary dust particles (IDP) of cometary and asteroidal origin and determine whether some IDPs preserve unprocessed pre-solar molecular cloud particles or show signatures of processing in the solar system. IDEX will identify primary organic material from asteroids and various cometary families to determine if they share a common source or are formed from distinct reservoirs. IDEX dust detection is based on impact ionization, where elemental and molecular ions are generated in a high-velocity dust impact and analyzed in a time-of-flight (TOF) setup. This talk will discuss the expected scientific results of IDEX that are of primary importance to heliospheric, astrophysical, and planetary sciences. This talk will summarize our current understanding of the ISD and IDP inventory and the expected improvements by the IMAP mission.
