Theoretical Fraunhofer Line Profiles in the Spectrum of the Zodiacal Light

Computations have been made of the distortion that a typical solar Fraunhofer line will suffer when it is measured after having been scattered from the zodiacal dust cloud. A variety of distributions have been assumed both for the particle density and for the particle size distribution; the computations have been done for light received from different elongations, easterly and westerly and for dust in either direct or retrograde circular Keplerian orbits. Some conclusions follow about the sort of information that can be collected by spectrophotometry of the zodiacal light and about the performance required of a spectrometer that is to study such line profiles.