Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Speaker : Dr. Ilse De Looze (University of Ghent)
Date : 7th January, 2025
Title : The origin of interstellar dust: from local supernovae to the high-redshift Universe
Abstract : The interstellar medium of galaxies from the local to
high-redshift Universe is pervaded with dust. Yet, the dominant
dust formation and evolution mechanisms remain poorly constrained.
Stellar sources such as asymptotic giant branch stars and supernovae
are known dust producers, but the efficient dust destruction by
supernova shocks could impose the need for an additional
dust production source accounting for dust grains forming
in situ in the ISM.
In this talk, I will review recent observational and
numerical efforts that scrutinise the efficiency of supernova
dust formation and destruction processes, and other dust
production sources. I will also give an extensive overview of
new exciting JWST observations of nearby supernovae, including
the detection of a puzzling newly identified dusty structure that
dominates the mid-infrared emission in the central regions
of Cassiopeia A.
Thanks to the combined strengths of JWST and ALMA, we start probing
the rise of metals and dust in the early Universe, where supernovae
are thought to play an important role. Modelling the chemical
build-up of metals and dust in these first galaxies, and in galaxies
in the nearby Universe, gives us a unique perspective on the
contributions of different dust sources and sinks, and on the
baryonic cycling of dusty material in and out of galaxies. I will
conclude my talk with a summary of exciting new observational
inferences of dust across cosmic time.