Is there ERE in diffuse galactic light at high latitude?

Abstract

In 1998 Gordon, Witt and Friedmann wrote of detection of ERE in diffuse galactic light at high latitudes. The comparaison of diffuse galactic light and starlight over a few regions of the sky cannot, according to the authors, be fully explained by extinction of starlight. 50% of the red interstellar light needs to come from an interstellar emitting process. Different aspects of Gordon et al.'s data reduction work, and of the model which supports their assertion, will be considered here. Analysis of the 100 micron emission of the regions Gordon et al. have studied will prove that the color of the diffuse galactic light is explained by scattering of the background starlight by dust embedded in nearby cirrus. ERE may not be present in diffuse galactic light, and, more generally, in interstellar space.