News: ISRO confirmed that the Dust Experiment (DEX), India’s first indigenous dust detector, recorded interplanetary dust particles entering Earth’s atmosphere every thousand seconds.
About Dust EXperiment (DEX)
- Dust EXperiment (DEX) is India’s first home-made instrument designed to detect high-speed interplanetary dust particles in Earth orbit.
- Developed by: It was developed by the Physical Research Laboratory under Indian Space Research Organisation.
- Aim: The main aim of DEX is to detect and measure impacts of microscopic interplanetary dust particles to understand the space environment.
- Mission: It was flown onboard the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM) of the PSLV-C58 XPoSat mission launched on January 1, 2024.
- Key technical details
- The instrument has a weight of about three kilograms and operates at a power consumption of 4.5 watts.
- It was placed at an altitude of around 350 km while skimming Earth’s atmosphere at a 9.5 degree inclination.
- The detector has a wide field of view of about 140 degrees.
- It works on the hypervelocity detection principle by recording high-speed dust impact signals.
- Major findings
- Constant bombardment: The observations confirmed that Earth’s atmosphere faces continuous bombardment by interplanetary dust particles.
- Dust flux: DEX measured a dust flux of up to 6.5 × 10⁻³ per square metre per second, indicating a high impact rate.
- Significance: The experiment provides critical data for monitoring space environment risks and supporting future satellite, human spaceflight, and planetary missions.
