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| October 16 2022
Through space observation technologies, we are becoming increasingly aware that there are more and more objects around the Earth. (Photo: clone)
Did you know that the Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth? And have more than 30,000 asteroids been found near our planet? And did NASA really manage to deflect the orbit of an asteroid after it collided with a spacecraft?
These recent astronomical events have been in the news over the past week. As space observation technologies advance, we are increasingly aware of more and more objects around the Earth, or other phenomena in space. Check out some now.
Seeing Earth from space
While performing an extravehicular activity outside the Chinese Space Station, astronauts from the Shenzhou-14 mission took the opportunity to capture not only photos of the space structure, but also of Earth seen from afar – and the pictures are breathtaking!
It was already known that the Moon moves away from the Earth by about 3.8 cm every year. What is new now is that ancient terrestrial rocks hold “evidence” of the distance between our planet and natural satellites of the past.
The researchers went to a national park in Australia, where there are canyons formed by 2.5 billion-year-old sediments. There, they identified signs that the Moon was closer to the Earth by about 60,000 km than it is today – at that time, the days would have lasted only 17 hours.
Using space observation techniques, 30,039 asteroids have already been discovered near our planet.
These asteroids travel on paths that keep them at least 45 million kilometers from Earth’s orbit. The road may seem far away, but it is a very short distance in cosmological terms. However, no asteroid known today poses any danger to us – at least for the next 100 years.
Organic molecules were found near the center of three active galaxies – where they should not be, because until then it was believed that this type of molecules would not live in these regions.
In the observed galaxies, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), molecules formed from carbon atoms arranged in rings, which are potential building blocks for life and are very abundant in the universe, have been discovered.
Previous studies had indicated that intense radiation from the centers of galaxies from the vicinity of supermassive black holes would destroy any PAHs. But using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have found many PAHs in the three observed galaxies.
plasma jet
A Portuguese photographer and astronomer was able to capture a moment when the sun was somewhat “aggressive”. Take pictures of the sun’s prominence – in very high resolution.
Solar prominences are formations that end up being “ejected” from the surface of the Sun. These jets can be several times the diameter of the Earth and can last from a few days to months.
asteroid orbit
Since NASA’s spacecraft hit an asteroid, the question that remains is: So, did the test succeed? Did you really manage to change the orbit of a space object? Well, the answer has arrived and it is positive.
The space agency declared the DART mission a success, as it took 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit the larger object, called Didymos, before colliding with the asteroid Dimorphos. After the collision, this orbit now takes 11 hours and 23 minutes.
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