Fractal Description of Extra Terrestrial Fineparticles

A technique for measuring the fractal structure of the rugged boundaries exhibited by lunar dust and a cosmic dust fineparticle captured at the outer limits of earth's atmosphere are measured using a equipaced polygon construction measurement procedure. The measurement procedure is described and data illustrating the precision and accuracy of the method are presented. The technique can be automated using inexpensive equipment and is suitable for use in teaching laboratories. Comparative data is presented establishing that the equipaced polygon procedure generates data comparable to that generated by the structured walk exploration technique. It is suggested that the fractal structure of extra terrestrial fineparticles may be of interest not only to the cosmologist but to the mining engineer since lunar dust represents fractured material not subjected to attrition polishing. Models used to simulate the generation of soot in combustion processes are discussed and it is demonstrated that diffusion limited aggregation Monte Carlo routines generate an agglomerate that appears to have similar fractal structure to the cosmic dust fineparticle collected by Brownlee. The data presented also indicates that one should use caution when relating the fractal dimension of a projected perimeter profile in two dimensions to the three dimensional structure of a rugged fineparticle.