Interstellar dust and extinction
J. S. Mathis;
ARAA, 1990, 28, 37
ABSTRACT:It is noted that the term 'interstellar dust' refers to materials with rather different
properties, and that the mean extinction law of Seaton (1979) or Savage and Mathis
(1979) should be replaced by the expression given by Cardelli et al.
(1989),
using the appropriate value of total-to-selective extinction.
The older
laws were appropriate for the diffuse ISM but dust in clouds differs
dramatically in its extinction law.
Dust is heavily processed while in the ISM by
being included within clouds and cycled back into the diffuse ISM many times
during its lifetime.
Hence, grains probably reflect only a trace of their
origin, although meteoritic inclusions with isotopic anomalies demonstrate
that some tiny particles survive intact from a supernova origin to the
present.
KEYWORDS: cosmic dust, interstellar extinction, interstellar matter, emission spectra, far ultraviolet radiation, milky way galaxy, near infrared radiation, polarized radiation, silicates
PERSOKEY:dust, extinction, ,
CODE: mathis90