Two more satellites found in the form of gas clouds near the Earth

Any inhabitant of the Earth without hesitation will tell you that our planet has only one satellite - the Moon. But, as it turned out, the satellites are not only dense and spherical, but also gas. Of course, this is not the Moon, and they cannot be seen with the naked eye, nevertheless, scientists finally managed to prove their existence.

The fact that gas clouds revolve around the Earth was first reported by the Polish astronomer Kazimierz Kordylevsky, who observed them back in 1956. Later, the scientist managed to get photographs of these objects, and some of his fellow astronomers also observed these clusters of fine cosmic dust around the Earth. But due to the low brightness, these objects were very difficult, it is almost impossible to observe from the Earth. Therefore, the very fact of the existence of Kordylevsky clouds, as astronomers began to call them, was not considered proven.

And recently, scientists from Hungary managed to obtain irrefutable evidence of the existence of dust clouds that are located at the points of Lagrange. These are the special points that exist in the Earth - Moon system. The fact is that the Earth and the Moon have significant mass and exert a gravitational effect both on each other and on surrounding bodies. In this complex Earth - Moon system, there are unusual points, there are 5 in total, which are called Lagrange points. If objects with a minimum mass, and in this case it is cosmic dust, fall at these points, then they are in a stable position relative to the moon and the earth.

It is precisely at such a Lagrange point, or rather, in two of them - in L4 and L5, that Kordylevsky clouds were discovered that maintain their immobility with respect to the Earth - Moon system. This is a kind of gas clusters that revolve around the Earth, but at the same time maintain their stable position with respect to the Moon and relative to our planet.

From a practical point of view, the Kordylevsky clouds, given their stability, have a lot of possible applications. So, for example, artificial spacecraft can be placed at these points, and the most daring astrophysicists believe that they are ideal for placing intermediate stations from which mankind will explore the vastness of the solar system.

Watch the video: Dust Clouds Swirl Around the Cores of Active Galaxies. NASA Space Science (May 2024).