The effect of microscopic charged particulates in space weather.

Space weather is a relatively new and important field of research. It is relevant to diverse topics such as radio communication, space travel, diagnostics of ionospheric and space plasmas, detection of pollutants and re-entry objects, prediction of terrestrial weather and global warming. Recently it has been shown that nano- and micrometre-sized electrically charged particulates from interplanetary space and from the Earth's atmosphere can affect the local properties as well as the diagnostics of the interplanetary, magnetospheric, ionospheric and terrestrial complex plasmas. In this report the sources of the charged dust particulates and the effects of the latter on the near-Earth space weather are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]