The LS-CODAG experiment for Light Scattering measurements by dust particles and their aggregates

Light scattering measurements are needed to provide links between the currently available observations of scattering by dust in the solar system, and the still unknown properties of the clouds of dust particles and aggregates. The fragility, the fluffiness, and the size of the aggregates make it almost impossible to obtain realistic measurements throught computational models or classical laboratory measurements. In order to measure the scattering by dust particles and their aggregates, we have conceived the Light Scattering (LS) experiment for the COsmic Dust AGgregation (CODAG) module. This small and compact instrument has been developed to operate under microgravity conditions, jointly with the CODAG Sounding Rocket experiment (Blum et al. , 1998), during ESA rocket flights. The purpose of the experiment is to determine accurately the intensity and the polarization phase functions of the particles that are dispersed in a low pressure chamber, and to document the temporal evolution of their scattering properties, while an aggregation process representative of the solar system formation is starting and spreading out. The instrumental principle relies on simultaneous measurements, performed on a large number of phase angles, from back to forward scattering, of the two polarized components of the scattered intensity.