Aerosol particles are small. Swirling in the air around us, most of them smaller than the tiniest bug, thinner than the thinnest hair on your head, flowing specks virtually invisible to the naked eye. Newly created are nano-sizes. However, their influence is enormous.
They determine the color of sunsets. They cause more than three million premature deaths each year. And the power they have over our climate is enormous.
Despite their outsize effect, aerosols are shrouded in mystery. How are new aerosol particles created? Where are they born and under what conditions? Such questions have plagued climate scientists for decades and imbued climate models with persistent uncertainty. (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, more at phys.org)