A novel mechanism of the formation of compact dusty clouds in astrophysical environments is discussed. It is shown that the balance of collective forces operating in space dusty plasmas can result in the effect of dust self-confinement, generating eq
uilibrium spherical clusters. The distribution of dust and plasma density inside such objects and their stability are investigated. Spherical dusty clouds can be formed in a broad range of plasma parameters, suggesting that this process of dust self-organization might be a generic phenomenon occurring in different astrophysical media. We argue that compact dusty clouds can represent condensation seeds for a population of small-scale, cold, gaseous clumps in the diffuse interstellar medium. They could play an important role in regulating its small-scale structure and its thermodynamical evolution.
We discuss a novel mechanism of dust acceleration which may dominate for particles smaller than $sim0.1~mu$m. The acceleration is caused by their direct electrostatic interactions arising from fluctuations of grain charges. The energy source for the
acceleration are the irreversible plasma processes occurring on the grain surfaces. We show that this mechanism of charge-fluctuation-induced acceleration likely affects the rate of grain coagulation and shattering of the population of small grains.
