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Studying the spatial distribution of interstellar dust
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Author | Werner, Michael W. Allen, C. Murthy, Jayant Walker, Helen J. Kimble, R. Henry, R. C. Wofford, J. |
| Copyright Year | 1989 |
| Description | The spacial distribution of interstellar dust reflects both interstellar dynamics and the processes which form and destroy dust in the interstellar medium (ISM). The IRAS survey, because of its high sensitivity to thermal emission from dust in the IR, provides new approaches to determining the spatial distribution of dust. The initial results are reported of an attempt to use the IRAS data to probe the spatial distribution of dust - by searching for thermal emission from dust in the vicinity of bright stars. These results show that this technique (which relies on finding IR emission associated with randomly selected stars) can ultimately be used to study the distribution of dust in the ISM. The density of the cloud producing the IR emission may be derived by assuming that the dust is at its projected distance from the star and that the heating is due to the star's (known) radiation field. The heating radiation is folded into a grain model, and the number of emitting grains adjusted to reproduce the observed energy distribution. It is noted that this technique is capable in principle of detecting dust densities much lower than those typical of the cirrus clouds. |
| File Size | 215609 |
| Page Count | 4 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_19910005667 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t51g5m00n |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 1989-12-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Astrophysics Interstellar Radiation Thermal Emission Spatial Distribution Radiation Distribution Cosmic Dust Cirrus Clouds Infrared Radiation Infrared Astronomy Satellite Interstellar Matter Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports Server (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
