Dusty plasmas in astrophysics and cosmology

Cosmic Dust is an ubiquitous component of the interstellar medium and plays a significant role for the diagnostics and the local and global behaviour of astronomical objects, being linked both to most important microscopic and macroscopic phenomena. In this way not only the spectral appearance of dusty objects, but also their dynamical and energetical situation is essentially determined by the presence of a condensated material component. In a cosmological view the first appearance of a dust grain in the universe brings about the first 2-dimensional surface with most important consequences for the future chemical evolution of the universe. The cosmic dust complex consists usually of three problems: microscopic dust condensation, dust processing, and dust interaction with the ambient gas and radiation which both conduct a strong feedback to the local formation and existence conditions, but also to the global structure of a dusty object. Basically cosmic dust is intimately linked to a large variety of fundamental physical and chemical complexes. Though in astrophysics in most cases the dust component is considered to be electrically neutral, of particular interest in this context here are charged grains. It is the aim of this contribution to outline the overall situation and to address particular aspects imposed by charged particles.