Galileo and Ulysses Dust Detectors

The instruments are large-area (0.1  m2 sensitive area) highly reliable impact ionization detectors of sub-micron and micron sized dust particles.

This instrument had 10 times larger sensitive area (0.1 m2) and employed a multiple coincidence of impact signals in order to cope with the low fluxes of cosmic dust and the hostile environment in the outer planets magnetospheres.

The Galileo Dust Detector[4] was developed by the Team of Scientists and Engineers led by Eberhard Grün at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK), Heidelberg (Germany) and was selected in 1977 by NASA to explore the dust environment of Jupiter on board the Galileo Jupiter Orbiter.

Galileo was launched in 1989 and cruised for 6 years interplanetary space between Venus’ and Jupiter's orbits before it started in 1995 its 7-year path through the Jovian system with several fly-bys of all Galilean moons.

In 1996 the PI-ship was handed over to Harald Krüger from Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany.

Dust streams from Jupiter, and their interactions with the Jovian satellite Io were detected,[10] as well as ejecta clouds around the Galilean moons.