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We are living in a dusty universe: dust is ubiquitously seen in a wide variety of astrophysical environments, ranging from circumstellar envelopes around cool red giants to supernova ejecta, from diffuse and dense interstellar clouds and…
In the interstellar medium of the Milky Way, certain elements -- e.g., Mg, Si, Al, Ca, Ti, Fe -- reside predominantly in interstellar dust grains. These grains absorb, scatter, and emit electromagnetic radiation, heat the interstellar…
(abridged) The dust content of the universe is primarily explored via its interaction with stellar photons, producing interstellar extinction. However, owing to the physical extension of the observing beam, observations may detect scattered…
Context. The largest grains (0.5-1 micron) in the interstellar size distribution are efficient in scattering near- and mid-infrared radiation. These wavelengths are therefore particularly well suited to probe the still uncertain high-end of…
Scattering and absorption of light by a homogeneous distribution of intergalactic large dust grains has been proposed as an alternative, non-cosmological explanation for the faintness of Type Ia supernovae at $z\s im 0.5$. We investigate…
We have made high-resolution, high-sensitivity dynamic spectra of a sample of strong pulsars at 430 MHz with the Arecibo radiotelescope. For 4 pulsars we find faint but sharply delineated features in the secondary spectra. These are…
Radiative transfer models in a spherical, turbulent interstellar medium (ISM) in which the photon source is situated at the center are calculated to investigate the correlation between the scattered light and the dust column density. The…
Recent observations with dust detectors on board the interplanetary spacecraft Ulysses and Galileo have recorded a substantial flux of large interstellar grains with radii between 0.25 and 2.0 mu entering the solar system from the local…
An interferometric imaging technique has been proposed to instantly measure the diameter of individual spherical dust particles suspended in a gas discharge plasma. The technique is based on the defocused image analysis of both spherical…
Interstellar dust spans a wide range in size distribution, ranging from ultrasmall grains of a few Angstroms to micrometer-size grains. While the presence of nanometer-size dust grains in the Galactic interstellar medium was speculated six…
Recent laboratory experiments have revealed that destructive collisions of icy dust particles may occur at much lower velocities than previously believed. These low fragmentation velocities push down the maximum grain size in collisional…
The wavelength dependences of interstellar extinction and polarization, supplemented by observed elemental abundances and the spectrum of infrared emission from dust heated by starlight, strongly constrain dust models. One dust model that…
This paper develops a few science cases, using the PRIMA far-IR probe, aimed at achieving several breakthroughs in our understanding of the dust properties and their evolution. We argue that the specific observational capabilities of PRIMA,…
We have discovered ultraviolet halos extending as far as 5{\deg} around four (of six) bright UV stars using data from the GALEX satellite. These halos are due to the scattering of the starlight from nearby thin, foreground dust clouds. We…
This review describes our current understanding of interstellar extinction. This differ substantially from the ideas of the 20th century. With infrared surveys of hundreds of millions of stars over the entire sky, such as 2MASS,…
The origin of grain size distribution in the interstellar medium is one of the most fundamental problems in the interstellar physics. In the Milky Way, smaller grains are more abundant in number, but their origins are not necessarily…
Debris disks or belts are important signposts for the presence of colliding planetesimals and, therefore, for ongoing planet formation and evolution processes in young planetary systems. Imaging of debris material at small separations from…
Multi-wavelength spectroscopy can be used to constrain the dust and gas properties in debris disks. Circumstellar dust absorbs and scatters incident stellar light. The scattered light is sometimes resolved spatially at visual and…
Scattered light echoes from variable and cataclysmic stars offer one of the most effective means to probe the structure and composition of circumtellar and interstellar media. I build a simple model of light-echo surface brightness by…
A significant fraction of debris discs consist of a bright ring beyond which extends a wide halo. Such a halo should be made of small grains produced in the ring of parent bodies (PB) and pushed on high-e orbits by radiation pressure. It…