Thus, a grain may be larger than a wavelength of light across its length, but much smaller across its width. Dr. Jim Spann and Cathy Venturini with the Dusty Plasmas Laboratory. Links to 1,176x1,349-pixel, 273KB JPG . They can be spherically or irregularly shaped, and made of silicate or carbonaceous materials. In total, it's a complex range of particles that Spann and Abbas will try to measure in detail.
All planetary atmospheres have dust, aerosols and grains hanging in the atmosphere.
Even Mars with its tenuous atmosphere has months-long dust storms that obscure the surface. Results from the Dusty Plasmas Laboratory will also help in understanding what is seen in the thick dust clouds in deep space where planets are slowly condensing. Infrared telescopes can see little of what is happening because the view is obscured by the very dust that eventually will become planets, comets, asteroids, or just the dust that, as in our solar system, reflects sunlight back to give the sky a slight glow along the plane of the planets. SH52C-03 Experimental Determination of Infrared Extinction Cross Sections of Interplanetary Dust Particles . Knowledge of the distribution of interplanetary and circumsolar dust particles and their physical and optical characteristics provides valuable information about many issues dealing with the origin and formation of the solar system.