Optics of Cosmic Dust describes what we currently know about cosmic dust, how we know it, and the research efforts undertaken to provide that knowledge. Areas treated include observational information, dust morphology and chemistry, light-scattering models, characterisation methodologies, and backscatter polarisation and dynamics. Suitable as an introductory text, the book is also a reference guide for the advanced researcher.

The optics of small particles are useful in the interpretation of observational phenomena related to extinction, scattering and emission of radiation by dust grains in space. This review presents three components of dust modelling: Optical constants; Light scattering theories and models. The author aims to show how the general laws of the optics of dust particleswork and to highlight the information about cosmic dust. Part II will be dedicated to the consideration of scattered radiation, dust absorption and emission, radiation pressure and dust properties.

Biological warfare (BW) agents are a prime concern to both military and civilian personnel because of both their lethality and the resulting terror they would inflict upon a population. Dc testing and identifying aerosols is a primary objective of the US DoD and many other institutions worldwide. Light scattering may provide an automated means of rapidly detecting and identifying potentially lethal aerosols real-time without the use of chemical reagents or expensive maintenance. Since organic particles tend to fluoresce, many detector systems have focused on measuring this property to identify potentially harmful particles to raise an alarm. However, because fluorescence signals tend to be weak and smooth, it is difficult to differentiate among species of biological particles. Natural backgrounds vary widely and may cause false alarms. For this reason, other information is needed about the particle system that may be gathered from the elastic scattering spectrum. One property of 3W agents is that when they are aerosolized, they tend to aggregate into clusters. From the scattering signal, it might be possible to characterize the individual spores making up the cluster to help in the identification. However, again it is essential to be aware of the natural background signals caused by dust, diesel fumes, pollen, etc. and to develop methods to distinguish between these particles and the particles of concern.

This is the first book devoted to a study of the chemistry of cosmic dust, presenting current thinking on the subject distilled from many publications in surface and solid-state science, and in astronomy.

An excellent handbook on the physics of interplanetary dust, a topic of interest not only to astronomers and space scientists but also to engineers. The following topics are covered in the book: historical perspectives; cometary dust; near-Earth environment; meteoroids and meteors; properties of interplanetary dust, information from collected samples; in situ measurements of cosmic dust; numerical modeling of the Zodiacal Cloud structure; synthesis of observations; instrumentation; physical processes; optical properties of interplanetary dust; orbital evolution of interplanetary dust; circumplanetary dust, observations and simple physics; interstellar dust and circumstellar dust disks. No doubt, the text will be regarded as the standard reference on interplanetary dust for many years to come.