See our interstellar neighbours like you've never seen them before.

 Dust has long been regarded as an astronomer's worst nightmare, obscuring light and concealing objects of interest. However, with the advent of infrared astronomy, astronomers discovered that dust is an active and necessary component in the evolution of galaxies.

Dust has been a source of scientific discovery for astronomers in recent decades, and as seen by a group of photographs just released by Hubble scientists, it can also be incredibly beautiful.

Researchers created pictures of four nearest galaxies to the Milky Way using data from four telescopes that are no longer in operation: the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory and Planck observatory, as well as NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite and Cosmic Background Explorer. The photos depict the dust in and surrounding these galaxies in all their splendour, with cold dust in green, warm dust in blue, and hydrogen gas in red.

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (two dwarf galaxies circling the Milky Way), as well as the neighbouring Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies, are depicted. The photos demonstrate how the density of dust fluctuates within these galaxies as it is pushed around by stellar winds and hurled off by exploding stars.

"These upgraded Herschel photos demonstrate that the dust'ecosystems' in these galaxies are quite active," said Christopher Clark of the Space Science Telescope Institute, who led the investigation on the new photographs.

For example, because dust is essential in the birth of new stars, astronomers may identify places where stars are forming by looking for empty bubbles inside the dust.

Written by:

HASHIR BIN SHAHID