Tag Archive for 'Interstellar dust'

Beyond Neptune, there is a large disk of small objects, called the Kuiper Belt and beyond that is the Oort Cloud, home of the comets. This artwork shows a section of Kuiper Belt, crowded with the icy cores of potential comets. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Kuiper Belt May Be Much Larger than Previously Estimated

Feb 20, 2024 by News Staff

Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) are thought to be the dominant source of interplanetary dust particles in the outer Solar System due to both collisions between...

Windhorst et al. traced light that was emitted by the bright elliptical galaxy VV 191a (left) through the spiral galaxy VV 191b (right). As a result, they were able to identify the effects of interstellar dust in the spiral galaxy. Webb’s near-infrared data also shows us the galaxy’s longer, extremely dusty spiral arms in far more detail, giving them an appearance of overlapping with the central bulge of the bright white elliptical galaxy, though the pair are not interacting. In this image, green, yellow, and red were assigned to Webb’s near-infrared data taken in 0.9, 1.5, and 3.56 microns (F090W, F150W, and F356W respectively). Blue was assigned to two Hubble filters, ultraviolet data taken in 0.34 microns (F336W) and visible light in 0.61 microns (F606W). Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Rogier Windhorst, Arizona State University / William Keel, University of Alabama / Stuart Wyithe, University of Melbourne / JWST PEARLS Team.

Astronomers Trace Interstellar Dust in Backlit-Galaxy System

Oct 5, 2022 by News Staff

Dust is a key ingredient in both observed and physical properties of galaxies. It obscures and scatters stellar light, and enables star formation by acting...

The interstellar dust map made with Gaia’s data release 3. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC.

ESA’s Gaia Mission Releases Its Third Full Dataset

Jun 14, 2022 by News Staff

Gaia’s data release 3 (DR3) contains new and improved details for almost 2 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy as well as for a subset of solar system...

The Solar System moves through the Local Interstellar Cloud. Image credit: NASA / Adler / University of Chicago / Wesleyan.

Solar System is Traveling through Cloud of Supernova Debris: Study

Aug 25, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of scientists has found interstellar iron-60, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 2.6 million years that is predominantly produced...

Curious Marie is a sample of the Allende meteorite, which fell in northern Mexico in February 1969. The white, fuzzy-looking features in this fragment are calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions -- some of the first solids to condense in the Solar System. Image credit: The Planetary Society.

Researchers Find Presolar Grains in Unusual Inclusion from Allende Meteorite

Jan 29, 2020 by News Staff

Scientists from Washington University, St. Louis, Caltech and the University of Chicago have found presolar grains — tiny bits of solid interstellar...

The Kohnen Station in Antarctica. Image credit: Sepp Kipfstuhl.

Scientists Find Interstellar Iron in Antarctic Snow

Aug 20, 2019 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from Germany, Austria and Australia has found traces of the radioactive isotope iron-60 — the tell-tale signature of a supernova...

This Hubble image shows a spiral galaxy called NGC 972. The image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instrument. Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Ho.

Hubble Sees Dusty Star-Forming Galaxy: NGC 972

Jul 1, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking new photo of the spiral galaxy NGC 972. This Hubble image shows a spiral galaxy called NGC...

An illustration of the structure of a greasy carbon molecule, set against an image of the Milky Way’s center, where this material has been detected; carbon is represented as gray spheres and hydrogen as white spheres. Image credit: D. Young.

Milky Way is Rich in Greasy Carbon Molecules, Researchers Say

Jun 27, 2018 by News Staff

Organic matter of different kinds contains carbon, an element considered essential for life. There is though real uncertainty over its abundance, and only...

Cometary-type interplanetary dust particle collected by NASA aircraft. Image credit: Hope Ishii, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Cometary-Type Interplanetary Particles Contain Presolar Dust, Researchers Find

Jun 13, 2018 by News Staff

Samples of interplanetary particles — collected from the upper atmosphere of Earth and believed to originate from comets — contain presolar...

This artist’s impression shows what the galaxy A2744_YD4 might look like. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

ALMA Detects Vast Amounts of Interstellar Dust, Oxygen in Very Young, Distant Galaxy

Mar 9, 2017 by News Staff

New observations using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have demonstrated that A2744_YD4 — the youngest and most remote galaxy...

Cassini Samples, Analyzes Interstellar Dust at Saturn

Apr 15, 2016 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Cassini spacecraft has detected the faint but distinct signature of dust coming from outside our Solar System, from the Local Interstellar...