ISRO’s maiden home-made dust detector detects interplanetary dust particles striking Earth every 1,000 seconds

ISRO’s maiden home-made dust detector instrument has detected interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), described as “a cosmic invader striking every thousand seconds” on Earth, the space agency said on Monday, as per a report by PTI. The detection was made by the Dust EXperiment (DEX), the first Indian-made dust detector, which was flown on the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM) last year.

According to ISRO, IDPs are microscopic fragments from comets and asteroids that form the Earth’s “meteor layer” and appear as shooting stars in the night sky. DEX, developed by ISRO’s Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, is designed to detect high-speed IDPs by recording their impacts, helping improve understanding of the space environment and aiding future deep-space missions.

“The 140 degree wide-view detector successfully logged signals of orbital debris (dust) impacts during January 1, 2024 to February 9, 2024, confirming the instrument’s capability to identify and measure such events. Skimming Earth’s atmosphere on a 9.5 inclination, the detector registered several hits — a cosmic invader striking every thousand seconds,” ISRO said in a statement.


DEX is a three-kg instrument based on a hypervelocity detection principle and operates at a power consumption of 4.5 watts, according to the space agency. It was flown on the POEM of the PSLV-C58 XPoSat mission, launched on January 1, 2024, and placed at an altitude of about 350 km.

ISRO said the observations provide confirmation of the constant bombardment of Earth’s atmosphere by interplanetary dust. “At present, we have no measurements of cosmic dust in the thick atmosphere of Venus or in the thin atmosphere of the red planet Mars. DEX is a blueprint of the detector which can study the cosmic dust particle at any planet having atmosphere or no atmosphere,” the agency said.

The Earth-orbiting DEX can also enable direct measurements of IDPs around the Moon and within the atmospheres of Venus or Mars. Beyond scientific value, ISRO said such data is critical for monitoring the space environment, assessing risks to satellites, and ensuring the safety of future human missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.