What is 'space dust'?

Answer 1

Well...interstellar dust comes from a variety of sources, but mostly from the atmospheres of very old stars. In the outer layers of these red giant and red supergiant stars, the temperatures are so low that dust grains made of silicon monoxide or graphite can condense like rain drops directly from the stars material. The dust grains are whafted into space by radiation pressure or by some mechanical means, and over billions of years and millions of stars, they form a persistent 'medium' of dust grains everywhere. As they collect along with interstellar hydrogen gas, into vast clouds, their surfaces become very chemically active and they serve as catalysts for forming complex molecules in the interstellar medium. Dust grains are the repository of most of the interstellar medium's 'heavy elements' beyond helium. There seems to be very little dust in intergalactic space, and most of the dust we can detect seems to reside within galaxies to one degree or another. Elliptical galaxies seem nt to have much of an interstellar medium at all, while some spiral galaxies are so loaded with dust that it extinguishes a significant fraction of the light from the other stars in the galaxy. Some galaxies have such tremendous episodes of star formation occurring that the dust in these galaxies converts nearly 100 percent of the light into infrared radiation and so you get ultra luminous galaxies in the infrared, but which are very hard to detect at optical wavelengths. Typical interstellar dust grains are about 1/2 of a micron in diameter, but can grow up to several microns or more in the deep dark cores of collapsing dust clouds. Eventually these dust grains stick together to form ever larger bodies all the way up to asteroids and planets!

Answer 2

Space dust is dust in space that comes from the formation or destruction of planets, stars, comets or other interstellar objects. About 100 tons of space dust fall on the Earth every day. Although difficult to observe, dust in orbit near the Earth reflects sunlight.

Types
There are three main types of space dust:

Cometary dust: this dust is released by comets while they travel in the cosmos.
Asteroidal dust: this dust is the result of the destruction of asteroids while they disintegrate while entering the atmosphere.
Everything else: Dust that was created a long time ago when the planets were forming or even the formation of our sun.

Answer 3

its the dust between us and space

Answer 4

dust from space.

Answer 5

Cosmic dust is composed of particles in space which are a few molecules to 0.1 mm in size. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location; for example: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust, circumplanetary dust, dust clouds around other stars, and the major interplanetary dust components to our own zodiacal dust complex (seen in visible light as the zodiacal light): Comet dust, asteroidal dust plus some of the less signficant contributors: Kuiper belt dust, interstellar dust passing through our solar system, and beta-meteoroids.

Cosmic dust was once solely an annoyance to astronomers, as it obscures objects they wish to observe. When infrared astronomy began, those so-called annoying dust particles were observed to be significant and vital components of astrophysical processes.

For example, the dust can drive the mass loss when a star is nearing the end of its life, play a part in the early stages of star formation, and form planets. In our own solar system, dust plays a major role in the zodiacal light, Saturn's B Ring spokes, the outer diffuse planetary rings at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the resonant dust ring at the Earth, and comets.

The study of dust is a many-faceted research topic that brings together different scientific fields: physics (solid-state, electromagnetic theory, surface physics, statistical physics, thermal physics), (fractal mathematics), chemistry (chemical reactions on grain surfaces), meteoritics, as well as every branch of astronomy and astrophysics. These disparate research areas can be linked by the following theme: the cosmic dust particles evolve cyclically; chemically, physically and dynamically. The evolution of dust traces out paths in which the universe recycles material, in processes analogous to the daily recycling steps with which many people are familiar: production, storage, processing, collection, consumption, and discarding. Observations and measurements of cosmic dust in different regions provide an important insight into the universe's recycling processes; in the clouds of the diffuse interstellar medium, in molecular clouds, in the circumstellar dust of young stellar objects, and in planetary systems such as our own solar system, where astronomers consider dust as in its most recycled state. The astronomers accumulate observational ‘snapshots’ of dust at different stages of its life and, over time, form a more complete movie of the universe's complicated recycling steps.

The detection of cosmic dust points to another facet of cosmic dust research: dust acting as photons. Once cosmic dust is detected, the scientific problem to be solved is an inverse problem to determine what processes brought that encoded photon-like object (dust) to the detector. Parameters such the particle's initial motion, material properties, intervening plasma and magnetic field determined the dust particle's arrival at the dust detector. Slightly changing any of these parameters can give significantly different dust dynamical behavior. Therefore one can learn about where that object came from, and what is (in) the intervening medium.

Answer 6

It's the cremated remains of Space Ghost...

Answer 7

Proof that God needs some housekeeping done??

Answer 8

cosmic particles.