Astronomers confirm Earth has satellite dust clouds
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of two satellite dust clouds at the Earth’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points 250 thousand miles away, first spotted back in the 1960s.
The images they obtained show polarised light reflected from dust, extending well outside the field of view of the camera lens. The observed pattern matches predictions made by the same group of researchers in an earlier paper and is consistent with the earliest observations of the Kordylewski clouds six decades ago. Horváth’s group were able to rule out optical artefacts and other effects, meaning that the presence of the dust cloud is confirmed.
Since these locations are potential space station locations, determining the existence and nature of these dust clouds is important.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of two satellite dust clouds at the Earth’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points 250 thousand miles away, first spotted back in the 1960s.
The images they obtained show polarised light reflected from dust, extending well outside the field of view of the camera lens. The observed pattern matches predictions made by the same group of researchers in an earlier paper and is consistent with the earliest observations of the Kordylewski clouds six decades ago. Horváth’s group were able to rule out optical artefacts and other effects, meaning that the presence of the dust cloud is confirmed.
Since these locations are potential space station locations, determining the existence and nature of these dust clouds is important.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Very interesting! Makes sense from a conceptual view.
Free, powderized manufacturing materials that will be easier to prepare for 3D printing!
The composition of the clouds, any charge their particles may have, as well as estimates of their mass as particles and as a whole, and their total dispersion volume will be needed before speaking much about exploiting the available resource. Still, the possibility of sending low velocity electrons into a neutral particle cloud from a spacecraft, followed by a spacecraft that extends a positively charged mesh through the cloud to sweep up those particles by electrostatic attraction, does draw the attention. This definitely needs investigation!
Shouldn’t that be L4 and L5 points?
Andi: Thanks for spotting the typo. Now fixed.
They published 2 papers on this, and both are available:
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/480/4/5550/5089220
and
[https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/482/1/762/5114270]