Dust astronomy
Branch of astronomy / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dust astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that uses the information contained in individual cosmic dust particles ranging from their dynamical state to its isotopic, elemental, molecular, and mineralogical composition in order to obtain information on the astronomical objects occurring in outer space. Dust astronomy overlaps with the fields of Planetary science, Cosmochemistry, and Astrobiology.
Eberhard Grün et al. stated in the 2002 Kuiper prize lecture[2] "Dust particles, like photons, carry information from remote sites in space and time. From knowledge of the dust particles' birthplace and their bulk properties, we can learn about the remote environment out of which the particles were formed. This approach is called Dust Astronomy which is carried out by means of a dust telescope on a dust observatory in space".