We present the results of infrared ( IR ; 2.5–160 \mu m ) observations of the supernova remnant ( SNR ) Kes 17 based on the data obtained with the AKARI and Spitzer satellites .
We first detect bright continuum emission of its western shell in the mid- and far-IR wavebands together with its near-IR molecular line emission .
We also detect hidden mid-IR emission of its southern shell after subtraction of the background emission in this region .
The far-IR luminosity of the western shell is \sim 8100 L _ { \odot } , which makes Kes 17 one of the few SNRs of significant far-IR emission .
The fittings of the spectral energy distribution indicate the existence of two dust components : \sim 79 K ( hot ) and \sim 27 K ( cold ) corresponding to the dust mass of \sim 6.2 \times 10 ^ { -4 } M _ { \odot } and \sim 6.7 M _ { \odot } , respectively .
We suggest that the hot component represents the dust emission of the material swept up by the SNR to its western and southern boundaries , compatible with the distribution of radio continuum emission overlapping the mid-IR emission in the western and southern shells .
The existence of hot ( \sim 2,000 K ) , shocked dense molecular gas revealed by the near-IR molecular line emission in the western shell , on the other hand , suggests that the cold dust component represents the dust emission related to the interaction between the SNR and nearby molecular gas .
The excitation conditions of the molecular gas appear to be consistent with those from shocked , clumpy admixture gas of different temperatures .
We discuss three possibilities for the origin of the bright far-IR emission of the cold dust in the western shell : the emission of dust in the inter-clump medium of shocked molecular clouds , the emission of dust in evaporating flows of molecular clouds engulfed by hot gas , and the emission of dust of nearby molecular clouds illuminated by radiative shocks .