In "Lecture Notes in Physics Series: Small Bodies in Planetary Sciences", I. Mann, A. Nakamura, & T. Mukai (eds.), Springer, 2007, in press

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OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF DUST

Aigen Li


Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri,
Columbia, MO 65211; LiA@missouri.edu


Abstract. Except in a few cases cosmic dust can be studied in situ or in terrestrial laboratories, essentially all of our information concerning the nature of cosmic dust depends upon its interaction with electromagnetic radiation. This chapter presents the theoretical basis for describing the optical properties of dust - how it absorbs and scatters starlight and reradiates the absorbed energy at longer wavelengths.


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