Astronomers used to consider dust to be the bane of their job, blocking off light and hiding objects. Researchers discovered that dust is an essential ingredient for the evolution of the universe.
As demonstrated by a set of images recently released by Hubble scientists, dust can be stunningly beautiful as well as being a source of scientific discovery.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite of the Milky Way, containing about 30 billion stars. Seen here in a far-infrared and radio view, the LMC’s cool and warm dust are shown in green and blue, respectively, with hydrogen gas in red.ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/CSIRO/C. Clark (STScI)
The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory and the Planck observatory are two of the telescopes that have stopped working. Cool dust in green and warm dust in blue are shown in the images while hydrogen gas is shown in red.
The Andromeda galaxy, or M31, is shown here in far-infrared and radio wavelengths of light. Some of the hydrogen gas (red) that traces the edge of Andromeda’s disc was pulled in from intergalactic space, and some was torn away from galaxies that merged with Andromeda far in the past.ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/GBT/WSRT/IRAM/C. Clark (STScI)
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are one of the four galaxies pictured. Dust is thrown off by exploding stars and blown around by stellar winds, which are shown in the pictures.
The Small Magellanic Cloud is a satellite of the Milky Way, containing about 3 billion stars. This far-infrared and radio view of it shows the cool (green) and warm (blue) dust, as well as the hydrogen gas (red).ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/CSIRO/NANTEN2/C. Clark (STScI)
Christopher Clark of the Space Science Telescope Institute led the work to create the new images.
The formation of new stars can be spotted by looking for empty bubbles in the dust.
The Triangulum galaxy, or M33, is shown here in far-infrared and radio wavelengths of light. Some of the hydrogen gas (red) that traces the edge of the Triangulum’s disc was pulled in from intergalactic space, and some was torn away from galaxies that merged with Triangulum far in the past.ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/GBT/VLA/IRAM/C. Clark (STScI)
