Capture of interplanetary and interstellar dust by the Jovian magnetosphere

Interplanetary and interstellar dust grains entering Jupiter's magnetosphere form a detectable diffuse faint ring of exogenic material, This ring is composed of particles in the size range of 0.5 to 1.5 micrometers on retrograde and prograde orbits in a 4:1 ratio, with semimajor axes 3 < a < 20 jovian radii, eccentricities 0.1 < e < 0.3, and inclinations i less than or similar to 20 degrees or i greater than or similar to 160 degrees, The size range and the orbital characteristics are consistent with in situ detections of micrometer-sized grains by the Galileo dust detector, and the measured rates match the number densities predicted from numerical trajectory integrations.