Decipher the mysterious fog in the Milky Way

The strange mist in the Milky Way made the scientific world a headache for decades as a swirling dust cloud at a rate of more than ten billion times per second.

The red areas in the two composite images show that radiation emitted from rotating dust particles
at a rate of tens of billions of cycles per second. (Photo: ESA).

For decades, scientists discovered a fuzzy ' mist ' that emitted light in the Milky Way but they did not explain its nature. One theory is that these are thick dust clouds wandering between stars. However, the exact answer remains a mystery for decades, National Geographic said.

But recently the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft discovered that the mist was made up of countless tiny dust particles . Each particle has a diameter equivalent to 10 to 15 atoms. They rotate at a rate of more than ten billion rings per minute - the largest rotation speed in the universe that scientists know.

Scientists from the European Space Agency analyze the data sent by the Planck. They argue that dust particles collide continuously with fast moving atoms and ultraviolet rays. Continuous collisions make the dust particles rotate extremely fast. Because the rotation speed is so large, dust particles emit light with extremely short wavelengths.

Peter Martin, an astronomical professor at the University of Toronto in Canada, says that dust in the universe helps scientists understand exactly how stars and planets form.

" Heavy elements that make up the planet roam the universe for most of their time ," Martin explained.