Nanometer to micrometer sized conducting dust particles are electrically charged and accelerated by an electrostatic particle accelerator to speeds up to 100 km/s. Currently, operational dust accelerators exist at IRS in Stuttgart, Germany (formally at Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg), and at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) in Boulder, Colorado. The LASP dust accelerator facility has been operational since 2011, and has been used for basic impact studies, as well as for the development of dust instruments. The facility is available for the planetary and space science communities.
