Evolution of Interstellar Dust

The goal of the "Evolution of interstellar dust" guaranteed time key project (PI: A. Abergel & A. Zavagno) is to explore with Herschel the far-infrared (FIR) to submillimeter (submm) emission properties of dust particles in a wide range of regions within our Galaxy, from very diffuse clouds to sites of star formation and proto-stars. Photometric data taken with SPIRE and PACS are complemented with spectroscopy using the FTS of SPIRE and PACS to derive the physical conditions of the gas from the lines of [CI], the high-level rotational lines of CO, and the major cooling lines of [CII] and [OI].