Astronomers Just Created the Most Detailed 3D Map of Cosmic Dust Yet

Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy just constructed a detailed, three-dimensional map of the cosmic dust in our galaxy. The map makes use of 130 million spectra from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission to reveal properties of the dust, which clouds the cosmos between our world and just about everything else in the Milky Way. The 3D map indicates where the cloud most muddies the waters of the cosmos, as well as charts the regions where the “extinction” of light is less affected by the particulate matter. The team’s research was published today in Science. The dust distorts our view of stars and other bodies, making them appear redder and fainter than they really are. The latter effect is also known as extinction, or the absorption and scattering of background light by intermediate objects—in this case, dust grains. Of the 220 million spectra released by the Gaia mission in June 2022, the research team selected 130 million stars that they determined would be us ... Read full article.