Related papers: The Dawn of Dust Astronomy
Interstellar dust plays a crucial role in the evolution of the Universe by assisting the formation of molecules, by triggering the formation of the first low-mass stars, and by absorbing stellar ultraviolet-optical light and subsequently…
Dust is an essential ingredient of galaxies, determining the physical and chemical conditions in the interstellar medium. Several complementary observational evidences indicate that the cosmic dust mass density significantly drops from…
Over the past 10 years abundant evidence has emerged that many (if not all) stars are born with circumstellar disks. Understanding the evolution of post-accretion disks can provide strong constraints on theories of planet formation and…
Despite its small mass fraction typically observed in the interstellar medium, dust plays a significant role as a key component of galaxies, affecting a wide range of properties. This review focuses specifically on how dust grains influence…
We investigate the evolution of interstellar dust in the Universe by means of chemical evolution models of galaxies of different morphological types, reproducing the main observed features of present day galaxies. We adopt the most updated…
Airborne dust plays an active role in determining the thermal structure and chemical composition of the present-day atmosphere of Mars and possibly the planet's climate evolution over time through radiative--convective and cloud…
We investigate the dust properties and star-formation signature of galaxies in the early universe by stacking 111227 objects in the recently released COSMOS catalogue on maps at wavelengths bracketing the peak of warmed dust emission. We…
Long-baseline interferometry at infrared wavelengths allows the innermost regions around young stars to be observed. These observations directly probe the location of the dust and gas in the disks. The characteristic sizes of these regions…
Exozodiacal dust disks (exozodis) are populations of warm (~300K) or hot (~1000K) dust, located in or interior to a star's habitable zone, detected around ~25% of main-sequence stars as excess emission over the stellar photosphere at mid-…
The Ulysses spacecraft, launched in October 1990, orbits the Sun on a polar trajectory. The spacecraft is equipped with a highly sensitive impact- ionization dust detector which can in situ measure cosmic dust grains in the mass range 10^-9…
There are strong evidences which favour the existence of dust in active galaxies. Understanding the way in which dust interacts with the radiation and influences the physical conditions of the gas is crucial if we want to learn about the…
Models of chemical evolution of galaxies including the dust are nowadays required to decipher the high-z universe. In a series of three papers we have tackled the problem and set a modern chemical evolution model. In the first paper (Piovan…
Large amounts of dust have recently been discovered in high-z galaxies and QSOs. The stellar winds produced by AGB stars are thought to be the main source of dust in galaxies, but they cannot produce that dust on a short enough timescale…
Planetary formation is an efficient process now thought to take place on a relatively short astronomical time scale. Recent observations have shown that the dust surrounding a protostar emits more efficiently at longer wavelengths as the…
By means of chemical evolution models for galaxies of different morphological type, we have performed a detailed study of the evolution of the cosmic dust properties in different environments: the solar neighbourhood, elliptical galaxies…
An important aspect of quenching star formation is the removal of the cold interstellar medium (ISM; non-ionised gas and dust) from a galaxy. In addition, dust grains can be destroyed in a hot or turbulent medium. The adopted timescale of…
The properties of the smallest subunits of cometary dust contain information on their origin and clues to the formation of planetesimals and planets. Compared to IDPs or particles collected during the Stardust mission, dust collected in the…
Ultra-short period planets offer a window into the poorly understood interior composition of exoplanets through material evaporated from their rocky interiors. Among these objects are a class of disintegrating planets, observed when their…
The dust in the interstellar medium, that provides the material for forming stars - and circumstellar discs as a natural by-product - is known to have submicron sizes. As these discs are the sites of planet formation, those small grains are…
We present recent advances in theoretical studies of the formation and evolution of dust in primordial supernovae (SNe) that are considered to be the main sources of dust in the early universe. Being combined with the results of…