Love and Brownlee

Meteoritic materials that enter the atmosphere as small particles do not have the atmospheric strength filter that hampers the survival of cometary rocks. Small cometary dust particles survive atmospheric entry, and studies of interplanetary dust collected in the stratosphere have provided significant insight into the nature of cometary materials. Particles of 10 xm size decelerate at altitudes near 100 km where the ram pressures are only 0.02 kPa (Brownlee, 1985), many orders of magnitude lower than that experienced by conventional meteorites. Dust samples are also the largest source, by mass, of meteoritic materials. Over 3 X 10" t of interplanetary particles smaller than 300 xm diameter impact the Earth each year (Love and Brownlee, 1995). 

Love, S. G. and Brownlee, D. E. (1993). A direct measurement of the terrestrial mass accretion rate of cosmic dust. Science, 262, 550-3. 

Love S. G. and Brownlee D. E. (1991) Heating and thermal transformation of micrometeoroids entering Earth s atmosphere. Icarus 89, 26—43. 

Lorin JC, Slodzian G, Dennebouy R, Chaintreau M (1990) SIMS measurement of oxygen isotope-ratios in meteorites and primitive solar system matter. In A Benninghoven, CA Evans, KD McKeegan, HA Storms, HW Wemer (eds) Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry, SIMS VII 377-380. Wiley, Monterey Love SG, Brownlee DE (1993) A direct measurement of the terrestrial mass accretion rate of cosmic dust. Science 262 550-553... 

Brownlee D. E., Joswiak D. J., Schlutter D. J., Pepin R. O., Bradley J. P., and Love S. G. (1995) Identification of individual cometary IDPs by thermally stepped He release. In Lunar Planet. Sci. XXVI. The Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, pp. 183-184. 

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