Cold dust in nearby galaxies: implications for observing the high-redshift universe

The distribution of dust in nearby spiral galaxies not only affects our perceptions of disc morphology but will both redden and extinguish our view of the more distant Universe. In this paper, we present remarkable evidence for a population of cold grains (15–20 K) which is ten times more massive than the dust detected by IRAS and extends at least 50% beyond the present-day stellar disc. This conclusion is based chiefly on recent imaging observations carried out with the far-infrared/submillimetre arrays ISOPHOT and SCUBA. Our initial inference for visibility of the high-redshift Universe is that 40% of the light emitted at z = 2fails to reach the present-day observer due to intervening, foreground spirals. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.