Related papers: Interstellar Grains -- The 75th Anniversary
The Planck survey provides unprecedented full-sky coverage of the submillimetre polarized emission from Galactic dust, bringing new constraints on the properties of dust. The dust grains that emit the radiation seen by Planck in the…
We review the properties of dust in protoplanetary disks around optically visible pre-main sequence stars obtained with a variety of observational techniques, from measurements of scattered light at visual and infrared wavelengths to…
Recent space missions have provided information on the physical and chemical properties of interstellar grains such as the ratio $\beta$ of radiation pressure to gravity acting on the grains in addition to the composition, structure, and…
Spinning interstellar dust grains produce detectable rotational emission in the 10-100 GHz frequency range. We calculate the emission spectrum, and show that this emission can account for the ``anomalous'' Galactic background component…
Galactic interstellar dust (ISD) is the major ingredient in planetary formation. However, information on this important material has been extremely limited. Recently the Ulysses dust detector has identified and measured interstellar dust…
The discovery of the interstellar medium and the early work of Lyman Spitzer, Jr. are reviewed here in the context of the remarkable observation in the early 1950's that star formation continues in the present age. Prior to this…
A composite dust grain model which simultaneously explains the observed interstellar extinction, polarization, IR emission and the abundance constraints, is required. We present a composite grain model, which is made up of a host silicate…
Thermal fluctuations in the magnetization of interstellar grains will produce magnetic dipole emission at frequencies below ~100 GHz. We show how to calculate absorption and emission from small particles composed of magnetic materials. The…
Dust particles play a major role in the formation, evolution and chemistry of interstellar clouds, stars and planetary systems. Commonly identified forms include amorphous and crystalline carbon-rich particles and silicates. Also present in…
The polarization of starlight and thermal dust emission, resulting from non-spherical grains aligned with the interstellar magnetic field (B-field), act as a powerful tool to trace the B-field morphologies and strengths in molecular clouds…
Grain alignment theory suggests that grains should be aligned in circumstellar regions and the observational data available supports this conclusion. We discuss the alignment of grains via (1) magnetic relaxation, (2) mechanical processes,…
The interpretation of observations over different wavelength domains, which now exist over a large fraction of the sky, will be used to determine relationships between a nebula and its' illuminating source. The illuminating source of a high…
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the alignment of grains with the interstellar magnetic field, including paramagnetic dissipation, radiative torques, and supersonic gas-grain streaming. These must compete with disaligning…
The synthesis of water is one necessary step in the origin and development of life. It is believed that pristine water is formed and grows on the surface of icy dust grains in dark interstellar clouds. Until now, there has been no…
We present the mass distribution of interstellar grains measured in situ by the Galileo and Ulysses spaceprobes as cumulative flux. The derived in situ mass distribution per logarithmic size interval is compared to the distribution…
The degree to which interstellar grains align with respect to the interstellar magnetic field depends on disaligning as well as aligning mechanisms. For decades, it was assumed that disalignment was due primarily to the random angular…
The determination of the densities of intergalactic photons from the FIR to the UV produced by stellar emission and dust reradiation at various redshifts can provide an independent measure of the star formation history of the universe. High…
Following on from ideas presented in a recent paper by Schneider et al. (2010) on "The Far Future of Exoplanet Direct Characterization", I argue that they have exaggerated the technical obstacles to performing such 'direct characterization'…
In 1986 Alex Dalgarno published a paper entitled "Is Interstellar Chemistry Useful?" By the middle 1970s, and perhaps even earlier, Alex had hoped that astronomical molecules would prove to: possess significant diagnostic utility; control…
Interstellar dust is still a dominant uncertainty in Astronomy, limiting precision in e.g., cosmological distance estimates and models of how light is re-processed within a galaxy. When a foreground galaxy serendipitously overlaps a more…