Review of Methods for Characterization of Microsize Dust Particles

Lunar dust consists of particles ranging from sub-micrometer to millimeter-size particles. Characterization of these particles is essential to understanding their interactions and to developing technologies for mitigating the adverse effects of the dust on the performance of systems and hardware for extended duration manned missions on the moon. Many advances and new developments have been made in established characterization techniques for particles in this size range. It is now possible to thoroughly characterize particles from 0.1 nm to 1 mm size. Some of these recent developments in particle characterization techniques are described.