dust grains tagged posts

The dust cloud L183, identified as a likely region of future solar systems, was imaged by the Spitzer Space Telescope for research published in 2010. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Observatoire de Paris/CNRS

Our solar system began as a cloud of gas and dust. Over time, gravity slowly pulled these bits together into the Sun and planets we recognize today. While not every system is friendly to life, astronomers want to piece together how these systems are formed. A challenge to this research is the opacity of dust clouds to optical wavelengths (the ones that humans can see). So, astronomers are experimenting with different wavelengths, such as infrared light, to better see the center of dense dust clouds, where young stars typically form.

Recently, astronomers used data from NASA’s Spitzer Space T...

Researchers have calculated the dust chemistry of the solar nebula (thin dusty ring around young sun) Image credit: NASA/FUSE/Lynette Cook

Using sophisticated computer simulations, team has discovered new insights into the chemical composition of the dust grains that formed in the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Researchers from Swinburne Uni of Technology, Melbourne and the Uni of Lyon, France, calculated a 2D map of the dust chemistry in the solar nebula, the thin dusty disk that surrounded the young sun and out of which the planet formed.

It is expected that refractories (high temperature materials) should be located close to the young sun, while volatile materials (such as ices and sulphur compounds) should form far from the sun where temperatures are cooler...