NASA Cosmic Dust Catalog Service (NDCS) includes data from two
published NASA Cosmic Dust Catalogs: Volumes 15 and 18. 467 (Volume
15) and 957 (Volume 18) dust grains with their main physical
characteristics, scanning electronic microscope (SEM) images and X-ray
energy-dispersive spectra (EDS) are listed. The dust grains from
Volume 15 were collected in January-February (with L2021 dust
collector, 35.8 hours of flight ) and June-July (with L2036 dust
collector, 26 hours of flight) of 1994, during a 51.8-hour
stratospheric (20 km of altitude) exposure, with large area (300 cm2)
dust collectors L2021 and L2036 mounted on a NASA ER-2 aircraft. The
dust grains from Volume 18 were collected in November-December 1983
(W7068 dust collector, 33 hours of flight), June-July 2008 (L2071 dust
collector, 50 hours of flight), April-May 2009 (L2076 dust collector,
21.7 hours of flight) , May 2010 (L2083 dust collector, 32 hours of
flight) and June 2010 (L2079 dust detector, 16.4 hours of flight),
during a 153.1-hour stratospheric (20 km of altitude) exposure, with
large area dust collectors L2071, L2076, L2079, L2083, and W7068
mounted on NASA ER-2 and WB-57F aircrafts. The grains were analyzed
with a scanning electron microscope (SEM), equipped with a Si(Li)
detector and a PGT 4000T analyzer for X ray energy-dispersive
spectrometry (EDS). The EDS spectrum for each particle was obtained
over the 0-10 keV range by raster scanning using an accelerating
voltage of 20 kV for 100 sec. Two grain properties, transparency and
luster, need to be specified in addition to NASA's Cosmic dust catalog
guides and are described at
http://sbdn.iaps.inaf.it/web/sbdn/cosmic-dust-catalog.
References: The Cosmic Dust Catalog Volume 15 main page:
http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/dust/cdcat15/ParticleList.cfm and The
Cosmic Dust Catalog Volume 15 explanation guide:
http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/dust/cdcat15/index.cfm, The Cosmic Dust
Catalog Volume 18 main page:
http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/dust/cdcat18/index.cfm