New Extragalactic Perspectives in the New South Africa

What is the nature and composition of the dust grains responsible for the visual extinction in our Galaxy and in other galaxies beyond? What are the ranges in temperature of dust grains? Can these be less than 2.7K? Can the distribution of cold grains be studied optically at unprecedented arcsecond resolution? How does the presence of dust affect the morphology of a galaxy? Is this new dust-penetrated view bringing us to the verge of a breakthrough in understanding the connection between galaxy morphology and the underlying physics of galaxies? How large are the amounts of cold molecular hydrogen gas and cold dust in galactic disks? These are some of the key issues addressed in this book, which takes the postgraduate reader and professional researcher to the cutting edge of this rapidly developing field. Unique features of the book include fourteen in-depth invited review papers and twenty-six pages of discussion transcribed from a television tape. The contributions reflect the entire proceedings of an intensive one week International Conference on cold dust and galaxy morphology held in Johannesburg, South Africa, during January 1996.