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.
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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.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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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]