Previous | Session 28 | Next
J. S. Mathis (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)
Dust is injected into the ISM from many sources, each with a particular chemical and isotopic composition depending particularly upon the C/O ratio. Examples of interesting information derived from grains that have been little modified since leaving their source ("stardust") will be given. However, a great deal of processing takes place within the ISM itself, so that typical interstellar grains probably have little "memory" of any single source of origin. The evidence for the efficiency of both the chemical and mechanical processing will be discussed at some length: extinction laws in various environments and ranges of wavelength; gas-phase depletion patterns. My list of the major outstanding problems in understanding the physical nature of interstellar dust, in both the diffuse ISM and in starforming regions, will be given.
Previous | Session 28 | Next
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #2
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.