Dust in Galaxies

After introducing the materials this interstellar dust is made of, the authors explain the range of sizes and shapes of the dust grains in the Milky Way galaxy and the life cycle of dust, starting from the origins of dust grains in stellar explosions through to their turbulent destruction. Later on we see the variety of processes in interstellar space involving dust and the events there that cause the dust to change in ways that astronomers and astrobiologists can use to indirectly observe those events.

This book is written for a general audience, concentrating on ideas rather than detailed mathematics and chemical formulae, and is the first time interstellar dust has been discussed at an accessible level.