Our Dusty Universe
What's black & white and red all over?
Add our
universe to this list.
Adrift in a vast sea of darkness are not only familiar
bright stars but
dust
that glows predominantly in far-infrared light.
This cosmological dust was recently discovered
in data taken previously by the
COBE satellite,
and visible as a diffuse glow visible in the
above image.
The amount of dust in the universe is important because it
is a measure of the number of stars that created it,
of the number of stars that are cloaked by it,
and of the amount of distortion created in measurements
of the distant universe.