admin, Author at Space History

Why is the Earth’s surface warmed up better than at the height of clouds?

If you understand the clouds are closer to the Sun. Here, the different ability of clouds and the Earth’s surface to reflect and absorb sunlight plays a role. The earth heats up and gives off heat, and clouds often do not have such an opportunity

If we compare the distance from the surface of the Earth to the surface of the Sun and the distance from the cloud level to the surface of the Sun, their ratio will be equal to one with an accuracy of “machine epsilon” — the distance from the Sun does not play any role here.

As astronomers have found out, large planets can tear off the shells of dying stars

According to the scientific council, the results of the research allow us to explain the existence of systems with planets and brown dwarfs orbiting at short distances around the remnants of sun-like stars

Planets whose mass exceeds Jupiter by more than a dozen times, for example, can tear off the outer shell of the star absorbing it, which is in the final stages of its evolution, astronomers said at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

According to conservative estimates, “Approximately 5 billion years are left for our luminary, and when our Sun uses up the hydrogen fuel in the core, it will expand and become a red giant, absorbing the inner planets. The possible consequences and dynamics of such events are poorly understood, but it is believed that this is a relatively common fate for most planetary systems with a sun-like star. The work of scientists using hydrodynamic modeling shows that the interaction can lead to a number of results depending on the size of the absorbed object and the stage of evolution of the star,” the authors of the study, presented in the Astrophysical Journal, say.

Evolved stars can be hundreds or even thousands of times larger than their planets, and this size mismatch makes it difficult to perform simulations that accurately simulate physical processes at scale. To get around this problem, astronomers examined a small section of the star centered on the object being absorbed. This made it possible to evaluate the flow around it and measure the effective resistance forces.

“According to calculations, no bodies with a mass less than one hundred Jupiter masses can tear off the shell of a sun-like star before it expands to ten times the radius of the Sun. However, at later stages of evolution and expansion, the stellar envelope can be torn off by an object exceeding Jupiter in mass by only ten times,”
the authors of the study explained

The results of the research make it possible to understand and explain existing systems as they generate with planets and brown dwarfs that rotate at short distances around the remnants of sun-like stars. Previous studies have been based on assumptions that this may be the end result of the planetary absorption process, which included a reduction in the orbit of the absorbed body and the ejection of the outer layers of the star.

“The simulation also showed that planetary absorption can increase the luminosity of a sun–like star by several orders of magnitude for up to thousands of years, depending on the mass of the object and the stage of evolution of the star,”
the authors of the study concluded

One of the two moons of Mars will be destroyed

Scientists from time to time made a forecast of the orbit of Phobos, the study showed that for every 100 years Mars attracts a satellite by 2 meters. According to scientists, in 20-40 million years the satellite will be destroyed by the tidal forces of Mars into many parts – this is of course approximate, but inevitable. The gravitational forces of Mars form a kind of ring around it, like Saturn, smaller, but it will be.

Eventually, the largest pieces of this ring will fall to the surface of Mars in millions of years. When falling and hitting Mars, quite large craters will be formed. When it comes to small pieces, they will also disappear over time. All this will look like periodic meteor showers. Meteor showers can be observed from the surface of the Red Planet.

What happened to the planet Phaeton?

Now, this once-existing planet is now a pile of debris – its orbit is an asteroid belt.

What happened to Phaethon was that it was never able to form as a single planet. Jupiter tore it up. The attraction of Jupiter destroyed all the more or less large planetary embryos in the area of the current asteroid belt, and even threw them out of orbit. The total mass of all asteroids between Mars and Jupiter today is 25 times less than the mass of the Moon, what can we say about full-fledged planets.

Spiral Galaxy TPS 1087

In this photo of the ALMA radio telescope, it looks like a sleeping snake curled up in a ring… In reality, this object is from deep space — or, to be more precise, the spiral galaxy NGC 1087.

The Milky Way and NGC 1087 galaxy have jumpers — only NGC 1087 galaxy has a very small one when compared with other similar spiral galaxies. A distinctive feature of the galaxy NGC 1087 is its extremely small core. Astronomers and scientists are still unknown, they are puzzling over what this similar structural feature of the galaxy is connected with.

The ALMA image is a combination of photographs, they are taken at different wavelengths. The red color corresponds to clouds of cold molecular gas that forms stars. The bluish areas in the background are clusters of older, already formed luminaries. They were photographed by VLT.

What we know about Venus in two phrases

Venus, or rather its surface is always hidden behind a curtain of thick clouds, which makes it difficult to observe the second planet from the sun. Due to the density of clouds, it is inaccessible by any powerful ground-based telescope. However, using radar technology, the launches of automatic stations to this planet have long received a detailed image of the surface of this planet.

Mapping revealed vast elevations on Venus. The largest mountains of them are “The Land of Ishtar” and “The Land of Aphrodite”, comparable in size to terrestrial continents. There are relatively few impact craters on Venus. Most of the planet’s surface is geologically young (about 500 million years old). 90% of the planet’s surface is covered with frozen basalt lava.

Only 0.000002% of all the stars of the Milky Way we can see

According to conservative estimates, there are about 100 billion stars in the galaxy with the name “Milky Way”, scientists estimate (according to others – 400 billion). With the naked eye, a person can see no more than 10,000 stars, whether it is a lot or a little, you can judge. But the scale is still impressive.

Many people tried to count on a clear night, then it may seem to you that the sky is filled with tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of stars. However, from the first time you will be able to count, at best, no more than 3000 luminous objects.

NASA announced the landing site of the Venus probe DAVINCI to study its atmosphere

DAVINCI and the automatic VERITAS station were chosen by NASA to implement the Discovery program. A project to create an orbital repeater probe and a descent atmospheric probe. All this should be prepared and launched, sent to Venus in June 2029.

It will take six months for the CRIS orbiter to make its close flyby near Venus after launch. It will conduct remote sensing and spectroscopy of the lower layers and clouds of Venus. Already in November 2030, the second flight will be implemented according to the plan, during which much attention will be paid to observations of the mountainous regions of Venus. According to the results of 7 months, the orbiting probe will visit Venus for the third time and on June 21, 2031, the descent probe should drop into the atmosphere of the planet.

The mountainous Alpha Region in the southern hemisphere of Venus, near its equator, was chosen as the area of work of interest to scientists. It represents a unique type of geological objects characteristic of Venus — tesserae. The major axis of the landing ellipse for the descent probe is about 310 km, and it is located near the top of the ridge, with a height of about 900 m.

One light–year what is it equal to?

It is equal to ~ 10 trillion kilometers – this distance is simply unthinkable, it cannot be superimposed on something earthly to at least project in your head how far it is.

You and I on Earth are used to correlating everything with the physical distances between two objects. Only in space, in its infinite space, the distances are so great that the units of measurement used on earth life there are no longer suitable and have to be shifted to taking into account time.

The most common unit is suitable for this — the light year. It is equal to the distance that light (the fastest known quantity in the universe) travels in one year. This is about 10 trillion km.

Here is an example – the second closest star to Earth, Alpha Centauri, is 4.4 light–years away from us. That is, ~44 trillion km away from us.

Is there extraterrestrial life and what is their hostile attitude towards Earthlings?

Scientists suggest that approximately four hostile civilizations may inhabit the Milky Way, which are capable of invading the Earth. But again, in order not to scare you, these are assumptions built on indirect signs.

Scientists still suggest that on some planets of the millions of planets in the Milky Way, on which extraterrestrial life may exist. A new study from scientists suggests that about four of them may be inhabited by hostile alien civilizations that are ready to invade the Earth if possible. One of the signs of the existence of Methane in the layers of the atmosphere – this indicates the existence of organic matter, which may exist or existed. The probability of an invasion of our planet is very vague and is estimated as very low, because if there is intelligent life somewhere in distant galaxies, and they are able to reach us, we are of no interest to them.
So far, science does not know for sure if there is anyone else besides us…