Interactions in Cosmic and Atmospheric Particle Systems (ICAPS)

Dust agglomeration experiments in micro-gravity. In a broad context, the scientific objectives of ICAPS are the study of dust-dust interactions, dust-gas interactions, dust-light interactions, dust-light-gas interactions. ICAPS aims at providing answers to the following questions:

• What is the nature of interplanetary and interstellar dust?
• What is the mass, structure and motion of small dust aggregates?
• How can we interpret the astronomical observations of light scattered by such dust?
• How did the planets form in the early solar system?
• What are the interactions of aggregates with cosmic radiation?