interplanetary dust

    Caption: Porous chondrite interplanetary dust particle.

    "This is a scanning electron microscope image of an interplanetary dust particle that has roughly chondritic elemental composition and is highly rough (chondritic porous: CP). CP types are usually aggregates of large numbers of sub-micron crystallites (grains), clustered in a random open order." (Somewhat edited.)

    Note that chondrites are meteoritic material that has been mostly chemically unprocessed since the solar system formation. They are rich in silicates: i.e, silicon and oxygen like most ordinary rock. There are other elements and compounds. Note that chondrites are NOT ordinary rock.

    Credit/Permission: © Elmar K. Jessberger, Donald E. Brownlee (c. 1945--), 2005 (uploaded to Wikipedia by User:Amara, 2009) Creative Commons CC BY-SA 1.0.
    Image link: Wikipedia: File:Porous chondriteIDP.jpg.
    Local file: local link: interplanetary_dust.html.
    File: Solar System file: interplanetary_dust.html.