Space borne photometry perturbations from solar light scattered by debris: a first estimate

Abstract Recent studies have shown that the sunlight reflected by satellites and large space debris can affect the space borne observations. But the possible impartment caused by the scattering of the solar light by small debris has not been studied. This is the aim of this paper. From properties of such small man-made particles, we study the solar flux they scatter when they cross the field of view of typical high photometric quality instruments. We compute the contribution of the fragments released on orbit by the host satellite and of the debris already present into the background. A comparison between these results and the contribution of interplanetary dust (the Zodiacal Light) is obtained. Preliminary results show that these spurious fluxes are the main components of the noise level which affect the data and must be carefully subtracted from the scientific signal.