Interplanetary dust cloud

A diffuse population of dust particles orbiting the Sun, produced mainly by comets and asteroids. Scattered sunlight from this cloud appears as zodiacal light.

Comet: An icy Solar System body that releases gas and dust as solar heating increases. Cometary activity continually injects fine grains into the cloud.
Micrometeoroid: A tiny meteoroid, generally too small to observe directly before it enters an atmosphere. Interplanetary dust includes particles in the micrometeoroid size range.
Cosmic dust: Solid particles in space, ranging from molecules to grains found in planetary systems and interstellar clouds. The interplanetary cloud is the Solar System’s local population of cosmic dust.
Zodiacal light inversion problem: The challenge of inferring a three-dimensional dust distribution from the observed zodiacal-light brightness. Brightness measurements do not uniquely determine the cloud’s density and grain properties.
Asteroid collision: An impact between asteroids that can fragment them into smaller bodies and dust. Collisions in the asteroid belt contribute dust to heliocentric orbits.
Astronomical unit: The mean Earth–Sun distance, used as a standard unit for distances within the Solar System. Dust density and orbital populations are often described by distance from the Sun in AU.
Meteor shower: A recurring increase in meteors when Earth crosses a stream of debris in space. Some debris streams shed by comets connect the diffuse cloud to concentrated dust trails.
F-corona: The component of the solar corona formed by sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. Separating dust-scattered light from other coronal emission helps probe grains near the Sun.
Poynting–Robertson effect: A drag effect that makes orbiting particles absorb and reradiate sunlight, gradually losing orbital energy. It draws many grains inward toward the Sun.
Keplerian orbit: An idealized gravitational orbit governed by a central mass, such as the Sun. Dust particles follow near-Keplerian paths between significant perturbations.

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