Space is actually FULL of dust — we're talking about pillars of dust extending over a BILLION kilometers in size. So how exactly are orbiting observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope able to see anything?

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Alright, first let's go over the basics of what cosmic dust actually is. In contrast to your typical household dust bunnies, cosmic dust is a collection of extremely tiny solid matter particles drifting around in space.

And I mean really, really, really small. Like just a few molecules across. You may be wondering: how much dust is there in the universe...and where did it even come from?!

So here's the thing—astronomers don't exactly know the answers to these questions. BUT they do know that around 4,700 metric tons of dust falls onto Earth every year. AND they know that supernovas played a huge part in its production and distribution.

All the light that gets absorbed or scattered by the dust clouds makes stars tucked behind them seem more red and faint. This means that the average human eye looking through a regular old telescope is no match for a dust cloud since most of the light reaching that telescope will be outside the visible light spectrum. But now astronomers want to see in even greater detail. And this is where the James Webb Space Telescope comes into play.

#JWST #jameswebbtelescope #astronomy #space #seeker #science

Read More:

5,200 tons of space dust falls on Earth each year, study finds
https://www.space.com/extraterrestria...
"The culprit for a majority (around 80%) of this interplanetary dust is the Jupiter family comets. These cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust primarily originate in the Kuiper Belt, just beyond the orbit of Neptune."

What Dust From Space Tells Us About Ourselves
https://www.quantamagazine.org/matt-g...
"For a century, scientists thought that the strange spherules found on the seafloor had dripped off the molten surfaces of larger meteors as they crashed through the atmosphere. In fact, cosmic dust floats here from space rocks hundreds of millions of miles away, bearing tiny messages."

Cosmic dust that formed our planets traced to giant stars
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...
"Our Solar System is believed to have formed from such a cloud around 4.6 billion years ago, the team says. While most of the grains were destroyed in the process of making new rocks and planets, a small fraction survived and is present in meteorites."

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