Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter

[2] The detector works when dust strikes films of polarized polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), which generates an electrical charge.

[3] The space dust is then detected over the course of the New Horizons spacecraft flight out of the Solar System and past Pluto.

[1] One of the natural structures of the Solar System the VBSDC is designed to detect, is the Zodiacal cloud.

[1] VBSDC recorded the first measurements of sub-micron space dust in the outer Solar System.

[1] In the outer Solar System VBSDC recorded an average flux of dust of grain size larger than 2 × 10−12 grams of 2.5 × 10−4 m−2 s−1.

[11] Venetia suggested the name Pluto after the discovery of the new planet by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 at Lowell Observatory.

The Student Dust Counter (SDC), named the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (VBSDC) in June 2006 several months after New Horizons launch on a labeled diagram of the New Horizons spacecraft
VBSDC—Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter
Animation of New Horizons' trajectory from 19 January 2006 to 30 December 2030
New Horizons · 486958 Arrokoth · Earth · 132524 APL · Jupiter · Pluto VBSDC can record micron size dust impacts on NH's route away from the Sun and past Pluto