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COSMIC DUST
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Dictionary entry overview: What does cosmic dust mean?
• COSMIC DUST (noun)
The noun COSMIC DUST has 1 sense:
1. clouds of particles or gases occurring throughout interstellar space
Familiarity information: COSMIC DUST used as a noun is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Clouds of particles or gases occurring throughout interstellar space
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural phenomena
Hypernyms ("cosmic dust" is a kind of...):
cloud (any collection of particles (e.g., smoke or dust) or gases that is visible)
Holonyms ("cosmic dust" is a substance of...):
extragalactic nebula; galaxy ((astronomy) a collection of star systems; any of the billions of systems each having many stars and nebulae and dust)
Context examples
Many astronomical phenomena can be seen in this giant image, including cosmic dust and gas clouds that reflect, absorb, and re-emit the light of hot young stars within the nebula.
(Stellar Nursery Blooms into View, ESO)
The new ALMA observations reveal emission from clouds of cold cosmic dust surrounding the star.
(ALMA Discovers Cold Dust Around Nearest Star, ESO)
He was possessed by a madness to live, to thrill, "to squirm my little space in the cosmic dust whence I came," as he phrased it once himself.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
The spacecraft has also sampled millions of ice-rich dust grains with its cosmic dust analyzer instrument.
(Saturn Spacecraft Samples Interstellar Dust, NASA)
Astronomers often see ring and bubble-like structures in cosmic dust clouds.
(Herschel sees budding stars and a giant, strange ring, NASA)
Cosmic dust is mainly composed of silicon, carbon and aluminium, in grains as small as a millionth of a centimetre across.
(Ancient Stardust Sheds Light on the First Stars, ESO)
One known source of cosmic dust is AGB stars, or stars with about the mass of the Sun that are running out of fuel and puff up to many times their original size to form a red giant star. (AGB stars are one type of red giant star.)
(Exploding Stars Make Key Ingredient in Sand, Glass, NASA)
Cassini's cosmic dust analyzer instrument repeatedly detected miniscule rock particles rich in silicon and the team concluded these particles must be grains of silica, which is found in sand and the mineral quartz on Earth.
(Spacecraft Data Suggest Saturn Moon's Ocean May Harbor Hydrothermal Activity, NASA)
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