- The 3D rendering of space dust has been carried out by scientists at Berkeley Lab.
- Dust can dim or obscure the light of stars and galaxies beyond.
- The project name is DESI or Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument.
- This measures the universe’s accelerating expansion rate after its launch in 2019.
- DESI will create a map of more than 30 million distant galaxies, but the map will be distorted if the dust is ignored.
- The project will map dust in three dimensions, to find out how much dust is in any 3D region in the sky and the Milky way galaxy.
- The dust filled universe is part of the survey of the southern galactic plane, as dark patches.
- Maps composed compare dust within one kiloparsec or 3262 light years in the outer milky way.
- Data is used from Pan STARRS sky survey in Hawaii and from a separate survey called APOGEE at Apache Point, New Mexico.
- A new technique has been used called infrared spectroscopy. This lets astronomers peer through dust.
- Infrared measurements can cut through the dust that obscures different types of observations.
Details on APOGEE:
- APOGEE focuses on light from 100,000 red giant stars across the Milky Way, including those in the central halo.
- 3D maps have a much greater resolution or ability to see details than previously existed.
- The results were found to be in conflict with models that expect dust in the Milky Way to be predictably distributed and to exhibit larger grain sizes in areas where most dust resides.
- Dust properties vary little with the amount of dust so existing models of dust in the Milky Way may need adjustment to account for a different chemical makeup.
- In denser regions, it was thought that the dust grains will collect, so you have more big grains and smaller grains.
- Dense dust clouds appear the same as concentrated dust clouds.
- Variations in dust properties are not a product of dust density.
- There is one third of the galaxy missing and scientists are working on missing third of the galaxy.
Source: Huffingpost