Related papers: Interstellar dust revealed by light from cosmic da…
Contemporary interstellar dust has never been analyzed in the laboratory, despite its obvious astronomical importance and its potential as a probe of stellar nucleosynthesis and galactic chemical evolution. Here we report the discovery of a…
Several lines of evidence suggest that early-type galaxies might have been very dusty during their initial evolutionary stages, characterized by intense star formation activity. The radio selection has provided, by far, the richest samples…
Stars form from the gravitational collapse of dense molecular cloud cores. In the protostellar phase, mass accretes from the core onto a protostar, likely through an accretion disk, and it is during this phase that the initial masses of…
Carbon is one of the most abundant metals in the universe because of its synthesis in the fundamental triple alpha reaction. The knowledge of carbon abundances in different environments is one key ingredient to our understanding of stellar…
Stacked analyses of galaxy clusters at low-to-intermediate redshift show signatures attributable to dust, but the origin of this dust is uncertain. We test the hypothesis that the bulk of cluster dust derives from galaxy ejecta. To do so,…
Infrared emission has been detected from normal elliptical galaxies and from clusters of galaxies at 60um and 100um with the IRAS satellite. In both cases, the emission has the characteristics of cool dust with a temperature near 30K. For…
Several lines of evidence and theoretical arguments suggest that a large fraction of starlight is absorbed by interstellar dust and re-radiated at far-IR wavelengths, particularly during early evolutionary phases of early type galaxies,…
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…
This study investigates the origin of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) through the optical properties, albedo and spectral gradient, of zodiacal light. The optical properties were compared with those of potential parent bodies in the…
The star formation history derived from ultraviolet and H$\alpha$ data, without correction for dust extinction, on the one hand, and from far infrared and submillimetre data, on the other, is investigated. The latter estimates are found to…
Star formation is one of the least understood processes in cosmic evolution. It is difficult to formulate a general theory for star formation in part because of the wide range of physical processes involved. The interstellar gas out of…
Dark matter, proposed decades ago as a speculative component of the universe, is now known to be the vital ingredient in the cosmos, eight times more abundant than ordinary matter, one quarter of the total energy density and the component…
The detection of the 11.3-micron emission feature characteristic of the Si--C stretch in carbon-rich evolved stars reveals that silicon carbide (SiC) dust grains are condensed in the outflows of carbon stars. SiC dust could be a significant…
We find that dust clouds which eclipse young stars obscure the stellar disc inhomogeneously. In the particular case of CQ Tau, we find isolated optically thick structures with sizes $\lesssim0.6R_*$ and derive the typical $A_{V}$ gradient…
Cosmic dust is an important component of the Universe, and its origin, especially at high redshifts, is still unknown. I present a simple but powerful method of assessing whether dust observed in a given galaxy could in principle have been…
While we observe a large amount of cold interstellar gas and dust in a subset of the early-type galaxy (ETG) population, the source of this material remains unclear. The two main, competing scenarios are external accretion of lower mass,…
It is well established in the local Universe that regions of high star-formation rate are dusty. As a result of this physical causal link, galaxies of increasing current star formation activity emit a larger proportion of their bolometric…
The study of the long-dead early generations of massive stars is crucial in order to obtain a complete picture of the chemical evolution of the Universe, hence the origin of the elements. The nature of these stars can be inferred indirectly…
There is strong evidence for a large fraction of dark matter in the Universe. Some of the evidence and candidates for dark matter are reviewed. Dark matter in spiral galaxies may be in the form of cold dense clouds of molecular hydrogen.…
Hundreds of circumstellar disks in the Orion nebula are being rapidly destroyed by the intense ultraviolet radiation produced by nearby bright stars. These young, million-year-old disks may not survive long enough to form planetary systems.…