The Cosmic Dust Connection, 1996 Nato Science Series C: Series, Vol. 487

Solid particles are followed from their creation through their evolution in the Galaxy to their participation in the formation of solar systems like our own, these being now clearly deduced from observations by the Hubble Space Telescope as well as by IR and visual observations of protostellar disks, like that of the famous Beta Pictoris object. The most recent observational, laboratory and theoretical methods are examined in detail. In our own solar system, studies of meteorites, comets and comet dust reveal many features that follow directly from the interstellar dust from which they formed. The properties of interstellar dust provide possible keys to its origin in comets and asteroids and its ultimate origin in the early solar system. But this is a continuing story: what happens to the solid particles in space after they emerge from stellar sources has important scientific consequences since it ultimately bears on our own origins - the origins of solar systems and, especially, of our own earth and life in the universe.

Formation and evolution of interstellar icy grain mantles.- The core-mantle interstellar dust model.- Organic material in the interstellar medium.- PAHS, they’re everywhere!.- Neutral and ionized PAH spectral properties. Implications for the ultraviolet-visible interstellar extinction.- Absorption spectra of HI clouds.- Infrared spectroscopy of interstellar ices.- Polarization of starlight by interstellar dust.- Observations of CO ices in molecular clouds.- Determination of the optical constants of ices in the mid infrared.- Some astrophysical applications of ion irradiation experiments.- Grain formation and metamorphism.- Optical data of glassy pyroxenes and olivines.- Dust in Herbig Ae/Be stars and the cosmic dust connection.- Statistical properties of the interstellar dust in faint early-type galaxies.- The Tauvex UV imager and its contribution to the study of dust.- Dust properties and distribution in the UV.- Extinction and infrared emission from fractal dust grains.- Modeling astrophysical phenomena involving dust.- Properties of interstellar grains derived from X-ray halos.- Light extinction by layered grains.- Improvement of the discrete dipole approximation for the scattering calculations of clusters: the ?1-term method.- Pulse-heating of fragments from Orgueil (CI): simulation of atmospheric entry heating of micrometeorites.- Post flight analyses of impact sites on Eureca spacecraft and solar cell arrays.- Laboratory investigations of hydrogen recombination reactions on interstellar dust grain analogues.- On the origin of complex interstellar molecules.- A circumsolar dust ring near the earth.- Area to mass ratio and packing factor from meteor data.- Cometary dust loss: meteoroid streams and the inner solar system dust cloud.- Dust around young stellarobjects.- Origin and evolution of cometary ice.- Comets as samplers of interstellar dust.- The link between cometary and interstellar dust.- Organic solids in the outer solar system: Kuiper belt planetesimals.- 3-D modelling of the surface activity of a comet nucleus.- Two approaches to discuss on the unexpected activity of comets at large heliocentric distances.- Numerical modelling of gas production curves of a dust covered comet nucleus.- Physical processes on grains important for the chemical evolution of interstellar clouds.- List of Contributors.- List of Participants.- Index of Chemical Species.