Mondo News
    What's Hot
    All

    Mark Zuckerberg’s wife scolds him for building backyard octagon: ‘Working on that grass for 2 years’

    All

    Apple users bash new iPhone 15: ‘Innovation died with Steve Jobs’

    All

    Eid al-Fitr: UAE astronaut sends Eid greeting from space

    • About Us
    • Contact us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Mondo News
    • Home
    • Technology

      For Amazon’s Andy Jassy, a Cleanup Job Just Got a Lot Bigger

      September 26, 2023

      Paleontologists Identify Two New Species of Eocene-Period Tarsier-Like Primates

      September 26, 2023

      Amazon sued by FTC, 17 states for allegedly inflating online prices, overcharging sellers

      September 26, 2023

      iPhone 15 issues: Overheating, flunks bend test and changes color

      September 26, 2023

      Plant Alkaloid Trigonelline Improves Cognitive Functions, Study Suggests

      September 26, 2023
    • Science

      Satellites Show Mysterious Fairy Circles in More Parts of the World

      September 26, 2023

      IBMs Progress to Practical Fault Tolerant Quantum Computers

      September 26, 2023

      Underground climate change: How heat is trapped under the surface, threatening buildings

      September 26, 2023

      Antarctic winter sea ice hits ‘extreme’ record low

      September 26, 2023

      Vision of the Starshot Interstellar Lightsail Spacecraft

      September 26, 2023
    • Blockchain

      Inside the last moments before FTX collapsed: ‘Holy s–t, the company is probably broke’

      September 24, 2023

      SBF’s mom told him to ‘avoid’ disclosing millions in FTX donations to her pro-Dem PAC: suit

      September 22, 2023

      The Lawyers Sam Bankman-Fried Once Trusted Are Drawing Criticism

      September 21, 2023

      Imaging Surface of Exoplanets With 25 Kilometer Moon Crater Hypertelescopes

      September 21, 2023

      The Animals Are Talking. What Does It Mean?

      September 20, 2023
    • All

      For Amazon’s Andy Jassy, a Cleanup Job Just Got a Lot Bigger

      September 26, 2023

      Paleontologists Identify Two New Species of Eocene-Period Tarsier-Like Primates

      September 26, 2023

      Satellites Show Mysterious Fairy Circles in More Parts of the World

      September 26, 2023

      IBMs Progress to Practical Fault Tolerant Quantum Computers

      September 26, 2023

      Amazon sued by FTC, 17 states for allegedly inflating online prices, overcharging sellers

      September 26, 2023
    Mondo News
    You are at:Home»All»NASA: We think we’ve solved the mystery of ‘zodiac light’
    All March 10, 2021

    NASA: We think we’ve solved the mystery of ‘zodiac light’

    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    For centuries, the zodiacal light – or false dawn – has inspired humanity, from the astronomer Cassini to Prophet Muhammad.

    The mysterious zodiacal light – a faint and diffused glow visible in the night sky in the direction of the Sun, also known as the false dawn – has fascinated humans for centuries. Now NASA thinks it has solved the mystery of where it comes from.

    The light was investigated by the astronomer Giovanni Cassini in 1683 and even described by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in the Koran. It was recently believed to be sunlight reflected by a cloud of dust particles orbiting the sun.

    But new data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which journeyed to the gas giant Jupiter, has suggested that the dust actually originated from Mars, which is shedding particles into interplanetary space.

    One of the instruments aboard Juno happened to detect dust particles slamming into the spacecraft as it travelled to Jupiter, with the findings appearing in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

    The impacts provided important clues about the origin of the dust and the orbital evolution of the dust cloud, solving some of the mysteries about how and why the zodiacal light can vary so much.

    The significant implications of the discovery came as a surprise to the scientists who have spent years studying cosmic debris.

    As Professor Leif Jorgensen at the Technical University of Denmark said: “I never thought we’d be looking for interplanetary dust.”

    Prof Jorgensen had designed the four instruments that Juno used to track stars as part of its magnetometer investigation.

    NASA explained that these onboard cameras took photographs of the sky every quarter of a second to determine Juno’s orientation in space by recognising the patterns of the stars – an engineering task which was “essential” to the magnetometer’s accuracy.

    The professor hoped his cameras might also catch sight of an undiscovered asteroid, and so he programmed one camera to report things that appeared in multiple consecutive images but were not in the catalogue of stars and other celestial objects humanity already knows about.

    The results shocked him. The camera aboard Juno started beaming down thousands of images of unidentifiable objects – streaks of light appearing then mysteriously disappearing into space – leaving Prof Jorgensen and his colleagues baffled.

    “We were looking at the images and saying, ‘what could this be?’. We thought, ‘something is really wrong’. The images looked like someone was shaking a dusty tablecloth out their window,” he said.

    But when the researchers calculated the apparent size and velocity of the objects in the images, they realised what they were looking at – tiny dust grains smashing into Juno at about 10,000 miles (or 16,000km) per hour, chipping off submillimetre pieces of the spacecraft.

    “Even though we’re talking about objects with only a tiny bit of mass, they pack a mean punch,” said NASA’s Jack Connerney, Juno’s magnetometer investigation lead and the mission’s deputy principal investigator.

    It turned out that the spray of debris was coming from Juno’s expansive solar panels, which functioned as the biggest and most sensitive dust detectora ever built, even though that wasn’t their purpose.

    On Earth, the zodiacal light can vary – sometimes appearing to be very strong, and sometimes appearing even more faint and diffuse. The researchers successfully tied its appearance to Mars’s orbit – the dustiest planet that humanity knows of.

    This was a radical revelation for the scientists, who realised that the dust cloud ends at Earth because Earth’s gravity sucks up all the dust that gets near it.

    “That’s the dust we see as zodiacal light,” Prof Jorgensen explained – although another mystery remains: How does the dust escape Martian gravity? The researchers hope other scientists will investigate.

    Category: Technology

    Source: Sky

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Previous ArticleChina and Russia to build joint moon base
    Next Article ‘Waves of symptoms’: Researchers may have found a pattern of progression in Covid long-haulers

    Related Posts

    All

    For Amazon’s Andy Jassy, a Cleanup Job Just Got a Lot Bigger

    All

    Paleontologists Identify Two New Species of Eocene-Period Tarsier-Like Primates

    All

    Satellites Show Mysterious Fairy Circles in More Parts of the World

    All

    IBMs Progress to Practical Fault Tolerant Quantum Computers

    All

    Amazon sued by FTC, 17 states for allegedly inflating online prices, overcharging sellers

    All

    iPhone 15 issues: Overheating, flunks bend test and changes color

    All

    Plant Alkaloid Trigonelline Improves Cognitive Functions, Study Suggests

    All

    U.S. Accuses Amazon of Illegally Protecting Monopoly in Online Retail

    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    Stay In Touch
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    Quote of the day

    A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

    H.L. Mencken


    Exchange Rate

    Exchange Rate EUR: Tue, 26 Sep.

    Top Insights
    All

    M3ter locks in $14M to expand its usage-based pricing tools for SaaS businesses

    All

    Why Isn’t New Technology Making Us More Productive?

    All

    Getting One Vaccine Is Good. How About Mix-and-Match?

    about after amazon apple bezos biden billion bitcoin california change china climate coronavirus could covid earth facebook fight first flight google launch million online other pandemic people plans research rover scientists social space spacex study tesla their these tiktok twitter vaccine vaccines workers world years

    September 2023
    M T W T F S S
     123
    45678910
    11121314151617
    18192021222324
    252627282930  
    « Aug    
    Categories
    • All (18,630)
    • Blockchain (809)
    • Science (7,302)
    • Technology (10,547)
    Tags
    about after amazon apple bezos biden billion bitcoin california change china climate coronavirus could covid earth facebook fight first flight google launch million online other pandemic people plans research rover scientists social space spacex study tesla their these tiktok twitter vaccine vaccines workers world years
    Top Posts

    Amazon Prevails Over Reliance in India’s Supreme Court

    August 6, 2021

    Done with Facebook? Here’s how to deactivate or permanently delete your Facebook account

    September 24, 2021

    Climate change in India: Teen inventor’s solar-powered ironing cart

    October 14, 2021

    Mondo News is a Professional Technology & Science Blog. Here we will provide you with only exciting content that you will enjoy and find useful. We’re working to turn our passion into a successful website. We hope you enjoy our Content as much as we enjoy offering them to you.

    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    Categories
    • All (18,630)
    • Blockchain (809)
    • Science (7,302)
    • Technology (10,547)
    Most Popular
    All

    Una molécula para que el cáncer se autodestruya

    All

    Shipwreck emerges along Mississippi River bank as water level drops

    © 2023 Mondo News.
    • Home
    • About Us
    • Contact us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

    You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in .

    Ad Blocker Enabled!
    Ad Blocker Enabled!
    Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please support us by disabling your Ad Blocker.
    Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

    Strictly Necessary Cookies

    Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

    If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.