Experimental Results on Scattering by Irregular and Meteoritic Dust Particles Related to Photopolarimetry of Zodiacal Light and Comets

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The investigations of light scattering by larger meteoritic and terrestrial single grains (size range 20 urn to 120 urn) demonstrate that the scattering properties of irregularly shaped dark opague particles with very rough surfaces resemble the characteristic features of the empirical scattering function as derived from measurements of the zodiacal light. Purely transparent or translucent irregularly shaped particles show a guite different scattering behaviour. Furthermore irregular and multicomponent fluffy particles in the size range of a few microns were modelled by microwave analog measurements in order to explain positive and negative polarization of the light scattered by cometary dust grains .