Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
Previous discussions of the origin of the zodiacal cloud have attempted to distinguish between an asteroidal and a cometary source on the basis of collisional dynamics, that is, by calculating the rates of production and destruction of particles from the two possible sources. The uncertainties in these calculations are too large to permit a useful conclusion. The recognition that the solar system dust bands discovered by IRAS are probably produced by the gradual comminution of the asteroids in the major Hirayama asteroid families may allow us to estimate, with comparative confidence, the contribution to the zodiacal cloud of the asteroid belt as whole.