Experimental simulation of the atmospheric ablation of cosmic dust particles: implications for HPLA radar and lidar observations

The inner solar system is full of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) originating from cometary trails and collisions between asteroids. The entry and evaporation of IDPs in planetary atmospheres is related to a variety of phenomena including formation of mesospheric metal layers and clouds, and stratospheric aerosol chemistry. The estimated mass flux into the Earth’s Atmosphere from modelling of Zodiacal Cloud observations combined with results from our chemical ablation model (CABMOD) is consistent with the deposition rate of cosmic spherules on the ice caps. However, the fluxes derived from modelling of high performance-large aperture (HPLA) radar observations, which also uses CABMOD, are significantly lower.