Related papers: Stardust findings. Implications for panspermia
Stars with masses between 1 and 8 solar masses (M$_\odot$) lose large amounts of material in the form of gas and dust in the late stages of stellar evolution, during their Asymptotic Giant Branch phase. Such stars supply up to 35% of the…
The presence of spectroscopically confirmed Balmer breaks in galaxy spectral energy distributions (SEDs) at $z>9$ provides one of the best probes of the assembly history of the first generations of stars in our Universe. Recent observations…
In order to understand the origin and evolution of comets, one must decipher the processes that formed and processed cometary ice and dust. Cometary materials have diverse physical and chemical properties and are mixed in various ways.…
We review the history of spacecraft encounters with comets, concentrating on those that took place in the recent past, since the publication of the Comets II book. This includes the flyby missions Stardust and Deep Impact, and their…
The measurements of cosmic interplanetary dust by the instruments on board the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft contain the dynamical signature of dust generated by Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects, as well as short period Oort Cloud comets and…
The current picture painted by the observations of circumstellar dust at white dwarfs, and the consequent atmospheric pollution, is of a surviving planetary system. This chapter recounts in detail both the discovery and empirical…
Protoplanetary disks (PPDs) surrounding young stars are short-lived (~0.3-10 Myr), compact (~10-1000 AU) rotating reservoirs of gas and dust. PPDs are believed to be birthplaces of planetary systems, where tiny grains are assembled into…
The persistence of planetary systems after their host stars evolve into their post-main sequence phase is poorly constrained by observations. Many young white dwarf systems exhibit infrared excess emission and/or spectral absorption lines…
The Medusa (NGC 4194) is a well-studied nearby galaxy with the disturbed appearance of a merger and evidence for ongoing star formation. In order to test whether it could be the result of an interaction between a gas-rich disk-like galaxy…
The possible detection of a compact object in the remnant of SN 1987A presents an unprecedented opportunity to follow its early evolution. The suspected detection stems from an excess of infrared emission from a dust blob near the compact…
Molecules and dust are formed in and around the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and supernovae (SNe), and are ejected into the interstellar medium (ISM) through the stellar wind. The dust and gas contain elements newly synthesised in…
Existing (Spitzer Space Telescope) and upcoming (Herschel Space Telescope) facilities are deepening our understanding of the role of dust in tracing the energy budget and chemical evolution of galaxies. The tools we are developing while…
We review the recent observations of protoplanetary disks together with relevant theoretical studies with an emphasis on the evolution of volatiles. In the last several years Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) provided…
During the formation of our solar system, a large number of planetesimals were ejected into interstellar space by gravitational encounters with the planets. Debris disks observations and numerical simulations indicate that many other…
Hot temperature minerals have been detected in a large number of comets and were also identified in the samples of Comet Wild 2 that were returned by the Stardust mission. Meanwhile, observations of the distribution of hot minerals in young…
This article gives an overview of the constitution, physical conditions and observables of dust in the interstellar medium of nearby galaxies. We first review the macroscopic, spatial distribution of dust in these objects, and its…
It is surprising to find dust around B type stars, as in the case of B[e] stars. These stars exhibit a dense, dusty environment witnessed by their infrared-excess and many emission lines from permitted and forbidden transitions. Given the…
A major unsolved problem in galaxy evolution is the early appearance of massive quiescent galaxies that no longer actively form stars only $ \sim 1$ billion years after the Big Bang. Their high stellar masses and extremely compact structure…
We have strong evidence on all cosmic scales, from galaxies to the largest structures ever observed, that there is more matter in the universe than we can see. Galaxies and clusters would fly apart unless they would be held together by…
In studies of the oldest solar system bodies - comets and asteroids - it is their fragments - meteoroids - that provide the most accessible planetary material for detailed laboratory analysis in the form of dust particles or meteorites.…