Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection

Eol said:
Altair said:
Several previous searches around Makemake had turned up empty.
[...]
These previous infrared data did not have sufficient resolution to separate Makemake from MK 2. The team’s reanalysis, based on the new Hubble observations, suggests that much of the warmer surface detected previously in infrared light may, in reality, simply have been the dark surface of the companion MK 2.

Are there sufficiently uncertainties to suppose that the moon could have been captured recently by Makemake ? Like the cases that Pierre expose in is book with the gas giant ones ?

It's hard to say but it's certainly a possibility though Makemake was the first natural satellite discovered since 2013 which was discovered in 2016.
 
That deviation chart reminded me of a very long term one covering all the ice ages in ... number of millions of years... and it showed a tipping point, critical point that we had already crossed... which made me think of that image of the Coyote off the cliff chasing the Road Runner... looking over at the camera/viewer/us in acknowlegement of the obvious before crashing down. Haven't seen that chart since... but it was very self-evident I thought... the pattern of shift to ice age, already started... collapse of the curve begun... just enough time to look over and say wave goodbye. ;)

Not sure if it was temps or gases or what though... but obvious nonetheless.
 
Released today: CERN experiment [CLOUD] points to a cloudier pre-industrial climate

In two papers published today in the journal Nature, new results from the CLOUD experiment at CERN imply the baseline pristine pre-industrial climate may have been cloudier than presently thought. CLOUD shows that organic vapours emitted by trees produce abundant aerosol particles in the atmosphere in the absence of sulphuric acid. Previously it was thought that sulphuric acid – which largely arises from fossil fuels – was essential to initiate aerosol particle formation. CLOUD finds that these so-called biogenic vapours are also key to the growth of the newly-formed particles up to sizes where they can seed clouds.

[...]

CLOUD also finds that ions from galactic cosmic rays strongly enhance the production rate of pure biogenic particles – by a factor 10-100 compared with particles without ions. This suggests that cosmic rays may have played a more important role in aerosol and cloud formation in pre-industrial times than in today’s polluted atmosphere.


From attached pdf file:

http://press.cern/sites/press.web.cern.ch/files/file/press/2016/05/_cloud_nature_press_briefing_13may16.pdf said:
What has CLOUD discovered? CLOUD has found that oxidised biogenic vapours produce abundant particles in the atmosphere in the absence of sulphuric acid. Previously it was thought that sulphuric acid – which largely arises from sulphur dioxide emitted by fossil fuels – was essential to initiate particle formation. We found that ions from galactic cosmic rays strongly enhance the production rate of pure biogenic particles – by a factor 10-100 compared with particles without ions, when concentrations are low. We also show that oxidised biogenic vapours dominate particle growth in unpolluted environments, starting just after the first few molecules have stuck together and continuing all the way up to sizes above 50-100 nm where the particles can seed cloud droplets. The growth rate accelerates as the particles increase in size, as progressively higher-volatility biogenic vapours are able to participate. We quantitatively explain this with a model of organic condensation.

Why is it important for our understanding of climate? Ion-induced nucleation of pure biogenic particles may have important consequences for pristine climates since it provides a hitherto-unknown mechanism by which nature produces particles without pollution. And, once embryonic particles have formed, related but more abundant oxidised biogenic vapours cause the particle growth to accelerate. Rapid growth of the new particles while they are still small and highly mobile implies a larger fraction will avoid coagulation with pre-existing larger particles and eventually reach sizes where they can seed cloud droplets and influence climate. Pure biogenic nucleation and growth may raise the baseline aerosol state of the pristine pre-industrial atmosphere and so may reduce the estimated anthropogenic radiative forcing from increased aerosol-cloud albedo over the industrial period. Ion-induced pure biogenic nucleation may also shed new light on the long-standing question of a physical mechanism for solar-climate variability in the pristine pre-industrial climate.
 
Another "active asteroid" 324P/La Sagra observed by Hubble:

activeastero.jpg


The renowned Hubble Space Telescope (HST) plays a leading role in uncovering distant locations of the universe, but it could be also a helpful tool for studying nearby objects, like space rocks whizzing through our solar system. Recently, a team of astronomers used Hubble to get a glimpse of the active asteroid 324P/La Sagra in order to unravel dynamic processes occurring on its surface. Their findings, published June 28 in a paper on arXiv.org, could improve our understanding of active asteroids.

Active asteroids like 324P/La Sagra, are bodies with asteroid-like orbits, which also show transient, comet-like activity. This activity could be caused by various physical processes, including impact, thermal fracture, rotational instabilities and ice sublimation. However, scientists still argue about whether these objects should be called "main-belt comets" (as they orbit the sun within asteroid belt) or rather asteroids exhibiting dust activity. Observing these bodies via powerful space telescopes such as Hubble could provide new insights into these processes and therefore the real nature of these objects.

[...]

Source: _http://phys.org/news/2016-07-asteroid-324pla-sagra-hubble.html
 
New Dwarf Planet Discovered Far Beyond Pluto's Orbit

Pluto isn't quite as lonely as scientists had thought.

Astronomers have discovered another dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy objects beyond Neptune. But this newfound world, dubbed 2015 RR245, is much more distant than Pluto, orbiting the sun once every 700 Earth years, scientists said. (Pluto completes one lap around the sun every 248 Earth years.) You can see an animation of the new dwarf planet's orbit here.

"The icy worlds beyond Neptune trace how the giant planets formed and then moved out from the sun," discovery team member Michele Bannister, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said in a statement. "They let us piece together the history of our solar system." [Meet the Solar System's Dwarf Planets]

"But almost all of these icy worlds are painfully small and faint; it's really exciting to find one that's large and bright enough that we can study it in detail," Bannister added.

dwarf-planet-RR24.jpg


The exact size of 2015 RR245 is not yet known, but the researchers think it's about 435 miles (700 kilometers) wide. Pluto is the largest resident of the Kuiper Belt, with a diameter of 1,474 miles (2,371 km).

The research team first spotted 2015 RR245 in February of this year, while poring over images that the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii took in September 2015 as part of the ongoing Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).

"There it was on the screen — this dot of light moving so slowly that it had to be at least twice as far as Neptune from the sun," Bannister said.

OSSOS has discovered more than 500 objects beyond Neptune's orbit, but 2015 RR245 is the first dwarf planet that the survey has found, the scientists said.

dwarf-planet-RR245-discovery.gif


Dwarf planets are massive enough to be crushed into spheres by their own gravity, but they have not "cleared their neighborhood" of other objects, which differentiates them from "normal" planets such as Earth and Saturn. This definition, which was devised by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, led to Pluto's controversial reclassification as a dwarf planet.

Astronomers are still working out the details of 2015 RR245's highly elliptical orbit, but the object appears to come as close to the sun as 34 astronomical units (AU), and farther away than 120 AU. (One AU is the average Earth-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km.)

2015 RR245 — which will get a catchier, official name at some point — will make its closest approach to the sun in 2096, the researchers said.

Other confirmed dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt region include Pluto, Eris, Haumea and Makemake. Several other objects in this distant realm, including Sedna, Quaoar and 2007 OR10, probably meet the dwarf-planet criteria as well, scientists have said.

Source: _http://www.space.com/33387-dwarf-planet-discovery-2015-rr245.html
 
Newly Discovered Solar System Objects Resonate with Neptune, 20 July 2016

The search for distant solar system objects has found two more small worlds far outside the orbit of Neptune. The new objects are located beyond the Kuiper Belt, which is a belt of small icy objects just beyond Neptune, of which Pluto is a member. They have the third and fourth most-distant perihelia, which is when an object has its closest approach distance to the Sun, of any known solar system objects.

In addition, the orbital motions of these objects are in resonance with Neptune’s orbit, which was somewhat unexpected. Their orbital paths imply that these worlds either have interacted with Neptune in the past or are continuing to do so – despite their great distances from the ice giant planet.

This latest discovery is based on observations made with the Subaru Telescope in Hawai'i and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) telescope in Chile, and is described in a paper published in the July 2016 edition of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Dr. Scott S. Sheppard (Carnegie Institution for Science) and his collaborators Dr. Chadwick Trujillo (Gemini Observatory at the time of the research) and Dr. David J. Tholen (University of Hawai'i) have been conducting the widest, deepest survey ever to search out distant solar system objects. The team members started their survey using the Suprime-Cam imager at the Subaru Telescope several years ago. Their main goal is to find extreme Trans-Neptunian objects and they already have successfully found several. Now with the new Hyper Suprime-Cam on Subaru, they are able to cover a lot more of the sky than in the past in their searches for faint distant worlds.


The Story Behind the Discovery

In 2014, the team predicted the existence of a Super-Earth-mass planet orbiting beyond a few hundred astronomical units (AU) away from the Sun. Its gravitational influence appears to be pushing the extreme Trans-Neptunian objects into similar types of orbits. The team is continuing a survey looking for this massive distant planet, but need to find more of the smaller objects, which can then lead them to the bigger object.

In their paper, the team members describe the discovery of the two new objects, and how these two new objects have very distant perihelia but don't have extreme semi-major axes or eccentricities like the other high-perihelion extreme trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) such as Sedna and 2012 VP113. In fact, these newly found worlds occupy a region of space just beyond what is known as the "Kuiper Belt edge," which lies about 50 AU from the Sun. Until this most recent discovery, only one object was known to have a low-to-moderate semi-major axis and a perihelion beyond this edge. The team discovered several more of these objects with high perihelion but moderately eccentric orbits. Their semi-major axes are in the range of about 60 to 100 AUs.

Figure 1: Above animation shows how the scientists discovered 2015 FJ345 from the images with Hyper Suprime-Cam at the Subaru Telescope. The observation took place on March 17, 2015, and the interval between the individual images is 2 hours. (Credit: Scott S. Sheppard/David Tholen/Chad Trujillo)

fig1.gif


What was surprising is that these new objects are all near Neptune Mean Motion Resonances (that is, the locations of their orbits have specific period ratios with respect to that of Neptune). One of the new objects goes around the Sun once every time Neptune goes around 4 times, while the other new objects go around once every time Neptune goes around 3 times. The new objects also have significant inclinations in their orbits and thus are effected by the Kozai resonance, which was first shown to effect high inclination objects by Yoshihide Kozai in 1962. This finding suggests these worlds were captured into this rare orbital region through interactions with Neptune while that planet was migrating outwards in the solar system in the distant past. Neptune was born much closer to the Sun than its current position, and its migration outwards disturbed other, smaller objects into these distant orbits we see today. Thus, these objects give us insights into the movement of Neptune during the very early history of the solar system.

The discovery and characterization of these objects and their orbits are described in the "Beyond the Kuiper Belt edge: New high perihelion Trans-Neptunian Objects with moderate semimajor axes and eccentricities" by Scott S. Sheppard, Chadwick Trujillo, and David J. Tholen, published July 1, 2016 in Astrophysical Journal Letters (Volume 825).


https://youtu.be/4kJjxLb40b0


Authors:

Scott S. Sheppard: Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution for Science
Chadwick Trujillo: Gemini Observatory, now Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northern Arizona University
David J. Tholen: Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaiʻi

Source: _http://subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2016/07/20/index.html
 
Electric Winds on Electric Worlds, Part 1 | Space News
Published on Jul 27, 2016

https://youtu.be/EupZxRjM1sk
A new scientific study provides powerful testimony to the extraordinary influences of electrical forces at the planetary scale. An electric wind recently measured at the planet Venus is said to be sufficiently strong that it can strip an entire planet of all its water components. The co-author of the study, NASA’s Glyn Collinson, said of these findings: "It's amazing and shocking. We never dreamt an electric wind could be so powerful that it can suck oxygen right out of an atmosphere into space. This is something that definitely has to be on the checklist when we go looking for habitable planets around other stars."

Bruce Haffner ‏@chopperguyhd Jul 18 Phoenix, AZ
Here's a high-res aerial photo of an amazing microburst over south Phoenix #azwx #monsoon
3TV Phoenix, CBS 5 News, NWS Phoenix and Penguin Air
CnsUz27UMAAbLdT.jpg

CnsoeTpVYAE9IzU.jpg:large

https://twitter.com/chopperguyhd/status/755242101835653120/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Dan Piech ‏@DanPiech Jul 25 Manhattan, NY
This #lightning strike just happened in #nyc, spanning the Hudson River. #thunderstorm #newyorkcity #photography
CoP7DaSWgAAAACS.jpg

https://twitter.com/DanPiech/status/757725526593269760

Bruce Haffner ‏@chopperguyhd Jul 22 Phoenix, AZ
Lightning illuminates curtains of rain against an Arizona sunset. #azwx Photo: @geraldferguson
CoBaRoZWcAEXDux.jpg:large

https://twitter.com/chopperguyhd/status/756704195336634369
 
The Watchers 8-3-16
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/
Earl forms near Jamaica as 5th tropical cyclone of the season, moving toward Belize
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/02/earl-forms-near-jamaica-as-5th-tropical-cyclone-of-the-season-moving-toward-belize/
Soberanes Fire - Massive wildfire burns over 17 500 hectares in California, thousands threatened
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/02/soberanes-fire-massive-wildfires-burns-over-17-500-hectares-in-california-thousands-threatened/
soberanes2.jpg

Big sinkhole filled with swirling water opens near Ipswich home, Australia
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/02/big-sinkhole-swirling-water-appear-near-ipswich-home-australia/

https://youtu.be/zy7ljgJFxjc
18 287 households in Nepal living under high landslide hazard risks
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/02/18-287-households-in-nepal-living-under-high-landslide-hazard-risks/
Tropical Storm "Howard" forms in the eastern Pacific Ocean, 8th named storm of the season
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/02/tropical-storm-howard-forms-in-the-eastern-pacific-ocean-8th-named-storm-of-the-season/
Typhoon "Nida" shuts down Hong Kong, severe flooding possible across southern China
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/02/typhoon-nida-shuts-down-hong-kong-severe-flooding-possible-across-southern-china/
Video shows tornado destroying a town in northern Vietnam
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/02/video-shows-tornado-destroying-a-town-in-northern-vietnam/
northern_vietnam_tornado_28jul2016_f.jpg

Giant sinkhole swallows 4 people and 3 cars in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/02/giant-sinkhole-swallows-4-people-and-3-cars-in-the-chinese-city-of-zhengzhou/
6zhengzhou_henan_sinkhole_1aug2016_f.jpg
 
Hawaii County Civil Defense Hurricane Madeline Update (Aug. 29, 2016)
Big Island Video News

https://youtu.be/_80Aae9B6Lg

Hurricane Madeline heads toward Hawaii Aug 30, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkICss7nenU

HURRICANE WATCH ISSUED FOR FLORIDA Aug 30, 2016

https://youtu.be/vY8EqRG92sU


The Peak of Northern Hemisphere's 2016 Tropical Cyclone Season August 30, 2016
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/08/30/the-peak-of-northern-hemispheres-2016-tropical-cyclone-season/
Snip:
As of August 30, 2016, there are six active tropical cyclones across the Atlantic and Pacific ocean. In the Pacific, they are Hurricane "Madeline," Hurricane "Lester," and Tropical Storm "Lionrock." In the Atlantic, they are tropical depressions Nine and Eight, both expected to become tropical storms today, and Hurricane "Gaston," the strongest hurricane of the 2016 Atlantic season so far. Climatologically speaking, the northern hemisphere tropical cyclone season is most active through late August and the first half of September and this year is no exception.

https://youtu.be/YpAvuj4zA-w

https://zippy.gfycat.com/NiftyIdenticalCrayfish.webm
A large non-tropical system over the Sea of Japan
 
Twenty Two-Finalists From 2016's Weather Photographer of the Year Contest
Society's Amateur Meteorologists' Conference on September 10. With so many stunning entries depicting rare and unusual weather phenomena,
_http://www.mentalfloss.com/photos/86220/22-finalists-2016s-weather-photographer-year-contest
timmoxon.jpg

Photographer Tim Moxon wasn’t the only person attracted to this slow-moving tornado forming over Colorado. He captured another spectator who had pulled over to take in the sight. For this photo, Moxon was awarded Overall Weather Photographer of the Year.
 
Powerful storm rips through Shuswap, Canada (Video)
https://watchers.news/2016/09/19/powrful-storm-rips-through-shuswap-canada/
Posted by TW on September 19, 2016
The hardest hit was Magna Bay where residents said it was so dark and windy they had never seen anything like that.
"The wind was so loud that we didn't hear the cottage next door being demolished," one resident said. "When we got back, our trailer was sitting in just a mass of destruction," another resident said.
One camper compared the storm to a tornado.

Very dangerous Typhoon "Malakas" to hit Kyushu, bring flooding rain to mainland Japan
https://watchers.news/2016/09/19/very-dangerous-typhoon-malakas-to-hit-kyushu-bring-flooding-rain-to-mainland-japan/
Posted by TW on September 19, 2016
https://watchers.news/data/uploads/malakas%20jtwc%20ft%2009z19sep2016.gif
Typhoon "Malakas" forecast track by JTWC at 09:00 UTC on September 19, 2016
Featured image: Typhoon "Malakas" approaching Kyushu on September 19, 2016. Credit: JMA/Himawari

Malakas weakened to a Category 1 hurricane equivalent after passing Taiwan, but it started to intensify again around 06:00 UTC on Sunday, September 18. By 18:00 UTC, it was again a powerful Category 3 hurricane equivalent. Malakas will experience some weakening before its first landfall, but will remain a very dangerous typhoon.

Southern and Central Japan can expect to see rainfall amounts between 120 - 300 mm (4.7 - 11.8 inches) with wind gusts up to 160 km/h (99.4 mph). JMA has issued warnings for heavy rainfall and the potential for flooding with mudslides and landslides of concern for areas around higher terrain.

Paine becomes 11th hurricane of the season, moving north toward Baja California
https://watchers.news/2016/09/19/paine-becomes-11th-hurricane-of-the-season-moving-north-toward-baja-california/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+adorraeli%2FtsEq+%28The+Watchers+-+watching+the+world+evolve+and+transform%29
Posted by TW on September 19, 2016 En español

https://youtu.be/a885kiN_L80
 
Astronomers discover five new Neptune trojans, September 20, 2016


16-astronomersd.jpg

The spatial distribution of all PS1 detected Trojans. The solid triangles are the newly discovered Neptune Trojans, and open triangles are the known ones detected by PS1. The positions of Neptune Trojans correspond to their first detections of PS1. The blue circles show the locations of Neptune from 2010 to 2013, and the crosses show the corresponding Lagrange points. Notice that the Galactic Center (GC) overlapped with L5 during 2010 to 2012. Credit: Lin et al., 2016.

An international team of astronomers led by Hsing-Wen Lin of the National Central University in Taiwan has detected five new so-called "Neptune trojans" – minor bodies sharing the same orbit as the planet Neptune. The discovery was made by the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) survey and is described in a paper published Sept. 15 on arXiv.org.

The PS1 survey, which utilizes the first Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) telescope in Hawaii, designated PS1, is one of the best tools to search for Neptune trojans. The survey, lasting from May 2010 to May 2014, has made a strong contribution to knowledge of the solar system's minor bodies due to its very wide survey area and its optimized cadence for searching moving objects.
"PS1 survey has a very wide survey area that is deep enough to cover a large part of the Neptune trojan cloud. PS1 currently is the only one with the capability to detect several Neptune trojans in a single survey," Lin told Phys.org.

The researchers found four new L4 trojans, meaning that they orbit Neptune's L4 Lagrangian point 60 degrees ahead of Neptune; they also found one L5 trojan – orbiting the L5 region 60 degrees behind the planet. The newly detected objects have sizes ranging from 100 to 200 kilometers in diameter.

What drew the attention of the astronomers is the fact that the new L5 trojan is dynamically more unstable than the other four, indicating that it could be temporarily captured into the Neptune trojan cloud.

"Our orbital simulations show that the L5 trojan stably librates for only several million years. This suggests that the L5 trojan must be of recent capture origin. On the other hand, all four new L4 trojans stably occupied the 1:1 resonance with Neptune for more than 1 billion years. They can, therefore, be of primordial origin," the paper reads.

The team also found that there are no Neptune trojans with orbital inclination between 10 to 18 degrees; therefore, the trojan population has a bimodal inclination distribution. That is why the researchers assume that there are probably two groups of Neptune trojans: a group of trojans with lower orbital inclinations (less than 10 degrees), and the other group with very high orbital inclinations (more than 18 degrees).

"There is a dynamically unstable zone between 10 and 18 degrees inclination, but the real reason for two groups of trojan is still unknown," Lin said.

Lin noted that the PS1 trojan database could provide many new important discoveries in the future as it is the first large enough dataset from a single survey, and therefore very good for probing the orbital distribution of Neptune trojan population. So far, the PS1 data allowed the team to find that the trojan cloud is wide in orbital inclination space, but not as wide as previously thought. The inclination width of trojan cloud is important because the different width could apply to different formation scenario of trojans.

However, the researchers are currently focusing on obtaining the colors of the newly detected Neptune trojans, which could help them confirm the existence of two groups of trojans.

"Currently, the PS1 data do not have good color measurements for these new trojans, but the additional color information could be important to understand if there are really two group of trojans," Lin said.


More information: The Pan-STARRS 1 Discoveries of five new Neptune Trojans, arXiv:1609.04677 [astro-ph.EP] arxiv.org/abs/1609.04677

Abstract

In this work we report the detection of seven Neptune Trojans (NTs) in the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) survey. Five of these are new discoveries, consisting of four L4 Trojans and one L5 Trojan. Our orbital simulations show that the L5 Trojan stably librates for only several million years. This suggests that the L5 Trojan must be of recent capture origin. On the other hand, all four new L4 Trojans stably occupy the 1:1 resonance with Neptune for more than 1 Gyr. They can, therefore, be of primordial origin. Our survey simulation results show that the inclination width of the Neptune Trojan population should be between 7∘ and 27∘ at > 95% confidence, and most likely ∼11∘. In this paper, we describe the PS1 survey, the Outer Solar System pipeline, the confirming observations, and the orbital/physical properties of the new Neptune Trojans.

Source: _http://phys.org/news/2016-09-astronomers-neptune-trojans.html
 
New Dwarf Planet Found in Our Solar System, 11.10.2016

A new face has been added to the solar system's family portrait: Scientists have discovered a new dwarf planet looping around the sun in the region beyond Pluto.

The dwarf planet, called 2014 UZ224, measures about 330 miles (530 kilometers) across and is located about 8.5 billion miles (13.7 billion km) from the sun, NPR reported today (Oct. 11). For comparison, Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is about 750 miles (1,200 km) in diameter, and reaches a maximum distance of about 4.5 billion miles (7.3 billion km) from the sun.

A year on 2014 UZ224 (the time it takes the dwarf planet to orbit the sun) is about 1,100 Earth years. One Pluto year, for c is about 248 Earth years. The new object was also confirmed by the Minor Planet Center.

David Gerdes, a professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan, told NPR that the new dwarf planet was discovered using an instrument called the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). The universe is not only expanding but accelerating in that expansion, and "dark energy" is the name scientists have given the mechanism powering that expansion. The DECam was built to observe the movement of galaxies and supernovas (exploding stars) as they move away from the Earth. The goal is to provide more clues that will help reveal what dark energy actually is or where it comes from.

A project called the Dark Energy Survey is using observations from the DECam to create a map of the universe that provides information relevant to the study of dark energy. The DES maps have already been used to study dark matter (which makes up about eighty percent of all the mass in the universe but whose exact nature is still a mystery) and to find previously unidentified objects.

Part of the DES includes taking images of a few small patches of the sky "roughly" once per week, according to the mission website, and that's what made this new discovery possible. While stars and galaxies appear in the same place in the sky, an object that is relatively close to Earth and orbiting the sun might appear to move over the course of a week or a few weeks.

A few years ago, Gerdes asked some visiting undergraduates to look for unidentified solar system objects in the galaxy map, according to NPR. The challenge was slightly difficult because the repeated observations would take place at irregular intervals, Gerdes said, but the students developed computer software to work with the irregularities and spot moving objects.

It took two years to confirm the detection of 2014 UZ224, NPR reports, and while its exact orbital path is still unclear, the scientists behind the discovery say they think that 2014 UZ224 is the third most-distant object in the solar system.

The smallest object in the solar system that has earned the title of "dwarf planet" (prior to this new discovery) is Ceres, which lies in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. Ceres is 590 miles (950 km) across. The object 2014 UZ224 might be too small to be considered a dwarf planet, Gerdes told NPR, but that will have to be decided by the International Astronomical Union (which made the controversial decision to demote Pluto to a dwarf planet). There are four other recognized dwarf planets in the solar system, but scientists think there could be dozens — or even more than 100 — objects that size that have yet to be discovered, according to NASA.

Planet nine?

The region beyond Neptune's orbit is known as the Kuiper Belt, a disk that is believed to contain thousands of icy, rocky bodies. Beyond that is a region known as the Oort Cloud — a sphere of icy, rocky bodies that surrounds the rest of the solar system. Most comets originate in the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud, but their wide orbits bring them close to the sun.

While the outer regions of the solar system are thought to be made up mostly of objects smaller than Pluto, there may be another planet nearly the size of Neptune lurking in this outer territory. Recent research has shown that the movement of known bodies in the outer solar system may point to the existence of this ninth planet (which scientists have dubbed Planet Nine); that research has prompted efforts to spot the new planet with telescopes.

Source: _http://www.space.com/34358-new-dwarf-planet-found-2014-uz224.html
 
Meteorites pummel the Moon far more than expected, 12 October 2016

Meteorites have punched at least 222 impact craters into the Moon's surface in the past 7 years. That’s 33% more than researchers expected, and suggests that future lunar astronauts may need to hunker down against incoming space rocks.

“It's just something that's happening all the time,” says Emerson Speyerer, an engineer at Arizona State University in Tempe and author of a 12 October paper in Nature1.

Planetary geologists will also need to rethink their understanding of the age of the lunar surface, which depends on counting craters and estimating how long the terrain has been pummelled by impacts.

Although most of the craters dotting the Moon's surface formed millions of years ago, space rocks and debris continue to create fresh pockmarks. In 2011, a team led by Ingrid Daubar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, compared some of the first pictures taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which launched in 2009, with decades-old images taken by the Apollo astronauts. The scientists spotted five fresh impact craters in the LRO images. Then, on two separate occasions in 2013, other astronomers using telescopes on Earth spotted bright flashes on the Moon; LRO later flew over those locations and photographed the freshly formed craters.

Forever young

LRO has taken about a million high-resolution images of the lunar surface, but only a fraction cover the same portion of terrain under the same lighting conditions at two different times. Speyerer’s team used a computer program to automatically analyse 14,092 of these paired images, looking for changes between the two. The 222 newfound craters are distributed randomly across the lunar surface, and range between 2 and 43 metres in diameter.

There are more fresh craters measuring at least 10 metres across than standard cratering calculations would suggest. This could mean that some young lunar surfaces may be even younger than thought, says Daubar. She calls the work “a significant advance in the field of crater chronology”, noting that it can even be used to compare cratering rates on the Moon and Mars.

Meteorites can churn up the lunar surface in several ways. Along with the fresh craters, Speyerer's team found more than 47,000 ‘splotches’, formed when material gets kicked up by the main impact and rains down — sometimes tens of kilometres away.

And that means a bigger risk for any future lunar habitats, says Stephanie Werner, a planetary geologist at the University of Oslo. The chances of a lunar base being nailed by a direct meteorite hit are relatively small, but the splattered material could pose a hazard. Werner is part of a team that has proposed a combined orbiter–lander mission to the European Space Agency, which would study impact flashes at the Moon and quantify the risk.

Source: _http://www.nature.com/news/meteorites-pummel-the-moon-far-more-than-expected-1.20777
 
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