The international conference on cosmic dust that runs every fifth year is now running in Copenhagen. Research on cosmic dust has grown in importance over the past decade due to the unparalleled sensitivity of new astronomical facilities operating at radio regimes, such as the ALMA array, and the Planck, and Herschel satellites. These five-yearly meetings give dust-specialists the opportunity to hear about advances in cosmic condensed matter across a vast range of specialisms from theory and observation to laboratory explorations and from dust in the solar system to dust in distant galaxies, and to try to synthesise those disparate findings into a coherent framework. The researchers gathered in Copenhagen this week will explore the origin of dust in space from stars and supernovae, its presence and properties around supermassive black holes, the importance of dust in planet-forming disks, and the appearance of dust galaxies in the early universe among other themes.
More information here.