Related papers: The Infrared Sky
Imaging and spectroscopic observations in the mid-infrared wavelength range (5$\mu$m--30$\mu$m) offer valuable insight into the origins of stars and planets. Sensitive new array detectors on 8-meter class telescopes make it possible to…
The mid-infrared emission from 18 nearby galaxies imaged with the IRAC instrument on Spitzer Space Telescope samples the spatial distributions of the reddening-free stellar photospheric emission and the warm dust in the ISM. These two…
The Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) is hidden behind veils of foreground emission from our own solar system and Galaxy. This paper describes procedures for removing the Galactic IR emission from the 1.25 - 240 micron COBE DIRBE maps as…
We summarize the properties of Infrared Dark Clouds, massive, dense, and cool aggregations of interstellar gas and dust that are found througout the Galaxy in projection against the strong mid-infrared background. We describe their…
We present a quantitative model for the infrared emission from dust in the diffuse interstellar medium. The model consists of a mixture of amorphous silicate grains and carbonaceous grains, each with a wide size distribution ranging from…
At luminosities above ~10^{11} L_sun, infrared galaxies become the dominant population of extragalactic objects in the local Universe (z < 0.5), being more numerous than optically selected starburst and Seyfert galaxies, and QSOs at…
High-contrast observations in optical and infrared astronomy are defined as any observation requiring a technique to reveal a celestial object of interest that is in such close angular proximity to another source brighter by a factor of at…
The brightest apparent magnitude examples of ultra luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRG's) are studied here in X-ray, optical, infrared and radio wavelengths. It is is found that they have associated material reaching out to apparent diameters…
Cosmic infrared background (CIB) contains information about galaxy luminosities over the entire history of the Universe and can be a powerful diagnostic of the early populations otherwise inaccessible to telescopic studies. Its measurements…
The cosmic infrared background (IRB) at wavelengths between 1 micron and 3 microns provides a useful probe of early star-formation prior to and during reionization. To explain the high optical depth to electron scattering, as measured by…
Using the 2MASS 2nd Incremental Data Release and the Zodiacal-Subtracted Mission Average maps of COBE/DIRBE, we estimate the cosmic background in the J (1.25 micron) and K (2.2 microns) bands using selected areas representing 550 square…
We discuss the dust attenuation and the star formation rates in the nearby universe obtained from a comparison of far-infrared (IRAS) and ultraviolet (GALEX) observations. The ratio of the dust to UV flux ratio is used to derive the dust…
We introduce the properties of the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) survey for IAU Symposium 204. 2MASS is a near-infrared survey of the entire sky characterized by high reliability and completeness. Catalogs and images for 47% of the sky…
More than a decade ago the IRAS satellite opened the realm of external galaxies for studies in the 10 to 100 micron band and discovered emission from tens of thousands of normal and active galaxies. With the 1995-1998 mission of the…
Recent work by Aplin and Lockwood [1] was interpreted by them as showing that there is a multiplying ratio of order 10$^{12}$ for the infra-red energy absorbed in the ionization produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere to the energy…
We describe the use of partially overlapping galaxies to provide direct measurements of the effective absorption in galaxy disks, independent of assumptions about internal disk structure. The non-overlapping parts of the galaxies and…
Much of the focus of exoplanet atmosphere analysis in the coming decade will be atinfrared wavelengths, with the planned launches of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). However,…
There exists a number of astronomical spectral phenomena that have remained unidentified after decades of extensive observations. The diffuse interstellar bands, the 220 nm feature, unidentified infrared emission bands, extended red…
About 25% of the optical extragalactic sky is obscured by the dust and stars of our Milky Way. Dynamically important structures might still lie hidden in this zone. Various approaches are presently being employed to uncover the galaxy…
Deep surveys at 850microns from Mauna Kea using the SCUBA camera on the JCMT appear to have discovered a substantial population of ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIGs: L_ir > 10^{12} L_sun). The cumulative space density of these sources…