Iconic optical image of the Eagle Nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the ‘elephant trunk’ columns protruding from the molecular cloud, illuminated by nearby young stars, but with the youngest objects buried inside. Right: SCUBA image at 450 μm showing thermal dust emission, unveiling the cold cores where the earliest stages of star formation can be studied. (Image and text from Scott et al., 2010 - see below)
The study of the Universe at submillimeter wavelengths (200 μm to 1 mm) enables astronomers to study cold dusty regions such as are found around newly forming star systems in both the Milky way and other galaxies. Though shrouded in debris disks, submillimeter astronomy can probe deep within to study the underlying sources of thermal radiation. Recently, Scott et al. posted a review of submillimeter astronomy in support of the Canadian Long Range Plan (Canada’s version of the Decadal Survey). They write:
A full grasp of galaxy evolution requires understanding star formation in detail, but there are still many unsolved issues in the star formation problem. The youngest stars form in dusty cores – findnig them demands wide submm surveys, with high resolution continuum and spectroscopic follow-up to probe accretion, outflows and disks….Details of the formation, structure and evolution of stars and thstellar systems are still poorly understood, largely because of the physical complexity, involving accretion, atomic and molecular cooling, astrochemistry, dynamics, and magnetic fields. Theoretical modelling struggles to keep pace with the quality of the data, and observations must erach the scale of the protostars themselves – ultimately requiring space-based interferometers.
The paper further describes the role of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in supporting a broad range of submm survey initiatives, and touches briefly upon some of the unique computational challenges for map-making at submm wavelengths.
Posted by John Rachlin 
