November 6, 2001 Scientists Detect Radio Emission "What we
believe we have found," said Douglas P. Finkbeiner of Princeton
University's Department of Astrophysics, "is the first hard
evidence for electric dipole emission from rapidly rotating dust
grains. If our studies are confirmed, it will be the first new
source of continuum emission to be conclusively identified in
the interstellar medium in nearly the past 20 years." Finkbeiner
believes that these emissions have the potential in the future
of revealing new and exciting information about the interstellar
medium; they also may help to refine future studies of the
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. The results from this
study, which took place in spring 1999, were accepted for
publication in Astrophysical Journal. Other contributors to this
paper include David J. Schlegel, department of astrophysics,
Princeton University; Curtis Frank, department of astronomy,
University of Maryland; and Carl Heiles, department of
astronomy, University of California at