A method for estimating the number of regolith particles in a dust cloud in a discharge initiated by gyrotron radiation

The article proposes a new method for estimating the number of particles in experiments on modeling the interaction of cosmic and lunar dust with the surface of spacecraft. The experiments are based on the creation of a dusty plasma cloud, when exposed to radiation from a powerful pulsed gyrotron on a substance simulating cosmic or lunar dust. This approach was tested using a lunar regolith simulator. The dynamics of particles in dust clouds obtained as a result of microwave discharge is analyzed using the ImageJ program.