How to Use cosmic dust in a Sentence

cosmic dust

noun
Definition of cosmic dustnext
  • These black holes feed on large volumes of cosmic dust and gas.
    — Bloomberg.com, 16 Feb. 2022
  • The camera can also see through cosmic dust, which tends to hide young stars.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Aug. 2022
  • But, instead, the galaxy is hidden by the thick cosmic dust of the Milky Way’s equator.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 30 May 2022
  • The team used substrates as a stand-in for cosmic dust particles.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 15 Feb. 2022
  • Thanos does that early in Endgame, but the Stones remain dispersed in the universe as cosmic dust.
    — Chris Smith, BGR, 8 Nov. 2021
  • And—as in that Milky Way example—that cosmic dust absorbs the light of stars behind it.
    — Christopher Intagliata, Scientific American, 8 Dec. 2021
  • Even after Thanos destroyed them in Endgame, the Stones still exist as cosmic dust.
    — Chris Smith, BGR, 16 July 2021
  • Somewhere in the cosmic dust of the internet, there’s a video of Fiona Apple dancing at home with her dog.
    — Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 17 Apr. 2020
  • But cosmic dust across the universe swirls together with gas to form stars, planets and the very building blocks of life.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 14 Mar. 2023
  • What if the rings have always been exposed to an unchanging influx of cosmic dust, and the rings are 100 million years old at most?
    — Quanta Magazine, 26 Nov. 2019
  • Webb’s use of the infrared light spectrum allows the telescope to see through the cosmic dust and see faraway light from the corners of the universe, scientists said.
    — Seth Borenstein, ajc, 12 July 2022
  • But either way, its final fate remains the same, written in the stars and planets yet to form from its generous gift of cosmic dust.
    — Allison Parshall, Scientific American, 17 Mar. 2023
  • During the Wolf-Rayet stage, stars shed their outer layers, which encompasses them in a ring of glowing cosmic dust and gas.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 Mar. 2023
  • Webb sees the universe in infrared, the optimal wavelength for telescopes trying to see through cosmic dust and catch the light from the most distant stars and galaxies.
    — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 12 July 2022
  • The Eagle is a glowing red cloud of ionized hydrogen and opaque cosmic dust that formed from a star that exploded some 5.5 million years ago.
    — Jake Parks, Discover Magazine, 20 Oct. 2022
  • Scientists tried to look beyond large clouds of cosmic dust, treated more like obstacles than subjects of study in their own right.
    — Popular Science, 19 July 2023
  • The jets occur when a star first bursts through its natal envelope of cosmic dust, shooting out a pair of opposing jets into space.
    — Julia Musto, Fox News, 12 July 2023
  • But interstellar space is littered with opaque clouds of cosmic dust, tiny grains of rocky or sooty material that block our view of what lies beyond.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 4 Aug. 2023
  • Astronomers have long wondered if grains of cosmic dust can form in and escape from the harsh inner regions of violent stellar systems.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 25 Oct. 2022
  • Astronomers also keep track of cosmic dust, tiny mineral grains that obscure the views of our optical telescopes.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 26 Feb. 2015
  • Meanwhile, the James Webb Space Telescope has captured a spectacular image of the eerie columns of cosmic dust and gas that mark the beginning of a stellar life cycle.
    — Katie Hunt, CNN, 22 Oct. 2022
  • But this light is more ethereal; it is caused by sunlight reflecting off billions of cosmic dust grains between the planets formed about 4.6 billion years ago.
    — Gerald Herbert, National Geographic, 16 Sep. 2020
  • By making detailed observations of the centre of the galaxy Messier 77, the astronomers detected a thick ring of cosmic dust and gas hiding a supermassive black hole.
    — Bloomberg.com, 16 Feb. 2022
  • But because our planet hits this cosmic dust trail at a perpendicular angle, our rendezvous with the Quadrantids will be brief.
    — Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian Magazine, 30 Dec. 2019
  • The top notes are listed as cosmic dust and antimatter particles, the heart of the fragrance is described as starlight, the scent of Supernova, and the base notes are atmospheric vapour, and dark nebulae.
    — Essence, 3 Dec. 2020
  • But no one could tell whether the gas was a byproduct of microbial life, the result of geological reactions or a side effect of meteoroids and cosmic dust raining down on the planet.
    — Robert Lee Hotz, WSJ, 7 June 2018
  • Unlike visible light, infrared can pass through cosmic dust, which means Webb will detect objects that are invisible to Hubble.
    — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 11 July 2022
  • This allows the telescope to capture light from distant objects that might otherwise be blocked by cosmic dust particles, which are more likely to interfere with light at a shorter wavelength.
    — Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 6 Sep. 2022
  • Hubble’s ultraviolet and visible-light image shows the different colors of younger and older stars, as well as dark areas of cosmic dust.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Sep. 2022
  • The researchers hypothesized that billions of years ago, as cosmic dust stuck together and formed asteroids and comets, simple peptides on the dust could have hitchhiked to Earth in meteorites and other impactors.
    — Quanta Magazine, 8 Mar. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cosmic dust.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: