Insight Into: Cosmic Dust

 

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach.

 

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA, ESA, and STScI except:

 

·       Taurus constellation drawing from Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, courtesy of the United States Naval Observatory

·       Andromeda Galaxy visible-light image courtesy of NOAO/AURA/NSF

·       Rocket launch image ©2008 ESA-CNES-Arianespace/Photo by Optique Video CSG 

·       Sunrise image copyright Jamie Lee – Fotolia.com

·       Barnard 68 images courtesy of ESO

 

Written by Tracy Vogel

Designed by Marc Lussier 

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

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Galaxy of white, brown, and red 

The universe is full of dust 

stars and dust swirl, forming a spiral galaxy 

We see regions and lanes of dust within galaxies. 

Clouds of dust collapse and condense to form stars and planets. 

stars float among clouds 

It even drifts in the spaces between galaxies. 

But where does dust come from? 

Cosmic dust comes from stars. 

Stars spew dust as they grow older. 

And when massive stars explode, they can give off huge amounts of dust. 

This supernova, SN 1987A, was observed giving off enough dust to build 160,000 to 230,000 Earths.