"Out there in the Universe, we're most aware of what we see: of all the forms of light that arrive in our eyes, instruments, telescopes, and detectors. Much more difficult to see, as well as understand and make sense of, is the wide array of "stuff" that's present, but that isn't readily apparent to the apparatuses we normally use to reveal the Universe."
"Sure, it gives absorption signatures that we can leverage, and at long enough infrared wavelengths, dust that gets heated has its own emission signatures, but we can generally only observe it in detail up close: within our own galaxy or in the nearest galaxies of all. That poses a huge challenge, because the origin of dust, including from a cosmic perspective, remains only very poorly understood."
"Thankfully, we have scientists on the case, like this month's guest: Dr. Elizabeth Tarantino of the Space Telescope Science Institute. In this fascinating interview, she takes us on a journey spanning gently dying stars, the formation of new stellar systems, the outskirts of our cosmic backyard, and to the farthest reaches of JWST as we try and piece this mysterious cosmic story together."
Cosmic dust pervades galaxies, nebulae, protoplanetary disks, and spiral arms, producing absorption features and emitting at long infrared wavelengths when heated. Observational detail is largely limited to the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, constraining understanding of dust origins and evolution across cosmic time. Multiple dust-producing sources are identified, yet the processes governing dust formation, distribution, and growth remain poorly understood, especially in the early Universe when dust abundance was much lower. New observational capabilities, including JWST, extend study to distant systems and the outskirts of galaxies to help reconstruct dust formation pathways and their role in star and planet formation.
Read at Big Think
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