The flux of interstellar dust observed by Ulysses and Galileo

Interstellar dust detected by the dust sensor onboard Ulysses was first identified after the Jupiter flyby when the spacecraft's trajectory changed dramatically (Grun et al., 1994). Here we report on two years of Ulysses post-Jupiter data covering the range of ecliptic latitudes from 0° to −54° and distances from 5.4 to 3.2 AU. We find that, over this time period, the flux of interstellar dust particles with a mean mass of 3·10−13 g stays nearly constant at about 1·10−4, m−2 s−1 (π sr)−1, with both ecliptic latitude and heliocentric distance.