Dust is ubiquitous in the solar system, with dust particles abundant in regions as diverse as interplanetary space, the martian and terrestrial atmospheres, comets, asteroids, satellite surfaces, and planetary rings. The dynamics of these short-lived particles are particularly sensitive to their environment, so they serve as valuable probes of a wide variety of processes and are strongly affected by electromagnetic forces. LASP researchers Mihaly Horanyi and Joshua Colwell are investigating the dynamics of dust in the solar system through a variety of theoretical and experimental techniques. In conjunction with the University of Colorado Physics Department and Dr. Scott Robertson's laboratory, and Dr. Robert Walch from the University of Northern Colorado, ground-based experimental techniques are being used to understand the charging of dust in space and the Earth's upper atmosphere, and the transport of dust in the photoelectron layer of airless solar system bodies, such as the Moon, Mercury, and asteroids. This involves two plasma devices which can be used to simulate various dusty plasma environments in the solar system. Theoretical investigations have been used to explain the morphology of Jupiter's dust ring and to interpret the data returned from dust detectors on the Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft.
