Overview
- Researchers generated carbonaceous dust by driving a glow-discharge plasma through nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene in evacuated glass tubes at about 10,000 volts.
- The condensed grains contained carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, showing infrared features that match dust observed in interstellar space as well as in comets and asteroids.
- Results were published in The Astrophysical Journal on January 30, 2026, in a paper by Linda Losurdo and David McKenzie.
- Controlled experiments distinguish the effects of ion bombardment versus temperature, offering a way to read the chemical histories preserved in meteorites and asteroid fragments.
- The team is building a reference library of laboratory infrared spectra to help astronomers infer dust-formation conditions from telescope data.