Stardust Recycling

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17675163

This article explains what for a long time scientists have been trying to figure out; how stardust is distributed throughout space to make the next generation of stars and planets. For years it has been thought that these particles were so small that they would absorb the light around them and become extremely hot. However, using a large telescope and a technique called polarimetric interferometry researchers were able to determine that these dust particles are actually larger than anticipated. Due to the larger size of the particle, it is predicted that the light from dying stars actually pushes these particles of dust away from the star, rather than the particles staying there and absorbing the light. I find it interesting how using this technique astronomers were able to determine the size of the particles of dust to be half a millionth of a metre. In class we were discussing errors that scientists made when trying to discover the speed of light and many of these errors were due to innaccurate measurements. It is truly amazing how far the scientific community has come in developing and using techniques to precisely collect data that seems impossible to obtain. In the future, more information acquired through this method could help us explain other phenomena in space and greatly contribute to our understanding of the development of our universe.