By designing major parts of the dust instrument scheduled to fly on the European Rosetta mission to a comet, we have also secured first right to that data. In this experiment, we simulated a small piece of the solar nebula inside the space shuttle and studied the aggregation. Our group also has direct access to the dust experiments on Ulysses, Galileo and Cassini and models the dust dynamics as well as monitors the Ulysses data. We continue the development of light scattering theory and the generation of an extensive and unique experimental database to analyze remote observations of scattering and emission from cosmic dust. Graduate and undergraduate students are involved with all projects including analysis of space instrument data, the development and testing of space instruments, the development of test equipment including a hypervelocity dust particle gun and a test chamber for dust motion.
Students also work on the theoretical and experimental light scattering work.