Our Dusty Universe . ... Credit Copyright: DIRBE Team , COBE , NASA Explanation: What's black white and red all over? ... Adrift in a vast sea of darkness are not only familiar bright stars but dust that glows predominantly in far- infrared light. ... The amount of dust in the universe is important because it is a measure of the number of stars that created it, of the number of stars that are cloaked by it, and of the amount of distortion created in measurements of the distant universe . ...