Space
Zodiacal light: Eerie glow at dusk and dawn traced back to Mars
(Planet-Today) A study led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) suggests that Mars may be responsible for the zodiacal light, a faint cone of light commonly seen extending from the horizon before dawn and at dusk.
(Article by Virgilio Marin republished from NaturalNews.com)
The zodiacal light is the sunlight reflected toward Earth by a cloud of dust particles orbiting the sun. Scientists previously thought that the dust came from asteroids and comets, but data from NASA’s Jupiter-bound probe Juno shows that Mars may be the source of the dust all along.
The findings of the study were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
What Juno’s voyage reveals about the interplanetary dust cloud
Juno entered Jupiter’s orbit in 2016 after five years of traveling across space. During its voyage, four cameras aboard it snapped photos of the sky every quarter of a second to determine its orientation. One camera was further programmed to report things that appear in images but are not listed in the catalog of known celestial objects.
For a time, the camera sent back images of thousands of unidentifiable objects, which seemingly appeared and then disappeared from one image to the next.
“We thought, ‘Something is really wrong.’ The images looked like someone was shaking a dusty tablecloth out their window,” said John Leif Jorgensen, a researcher from the National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark and the lead author of the study who designed the four Juno cameras.
After calculating the size and velocity of the objects, Jorgensen and his team concluded that the objects were tiny grains of dust smashing into the spacecraft at around 10,000 miles per hour. The grains chipped tiny pieces off the probe due to the sheer velocity of their impacts.
“Even though we’re talking about objects with only a tiny bit of mass, they pack a mean punch,” said Jack Connerney, the principal investigator for Juno and one of the study researchers.
The researchers analyzed the impacts sustained by Juno to plot the size and distribution of the interplanetary dust cloud. Their analysis showed that the cloud’s inner edge starts at Earth’s orbit, or at one astronomical unit (AU) from the sun. Meanwhile, its outer edge is around two AU from the sun.
“That’s the dust we see as a zodiacal light,” Jorgensen noted.
Also known as false dawn or dusk, the zodiacal light looks like a hazy pyramid that juts out from the horizon. It is caused by sunlight reflecting off grains of dust in the inner solar system.
The grains are spread out in the same flat plane of space that Earth and other planets in the solar system occupy. This flat plane translates on Earth’s sky to a narrow pathway called the “ecliptic,” which is the same pathway that the sun and moon travel as they journey across the sky.
Mars the source of the dust
The dust cloud ends somewhere beyond Mars, at which point Jupiter’s gravity prevents dust from crossing into the outer solar system. This phenomenon, known as orbital resonance, also prevents dust in deep space from crossing into the inner solar system.
The profound influence of Jupiter’s gravity indicated that the dust cloud is in a nearly circular orbit around the sun. This led the researchers to hypothesize that the dust grains originated from Mars, the dustiest planet in the solar system. As to how the team arrived at this hypothesis, Jorgensen explained that Mars, which orbits the sun at around 1.5 AU, is the only known object in a circular orbit around two AU from the sun.
To test their hypothesis, the researchers developed a computer model that predicts how sunlight would reflect off the dust cloud. The model takes everything into account, including the effects of Jupiter’s gravity. When the researchers plugged in the orbital elements of Mars, the model matched the signature variations of the zodiacal light.
“That is, in my view, a confirmation that we know exactly how these particles are orbiting in our solar system and where they originate,” said Connerney.
The researchers cannot yet explain how Martian dust escapes the planet. In all, the findings of the study can be used to design spacecraft that can better withstand dust impacts.
Read more fascinating finds in space at Discoveries.news.
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Renowned ufologist and virtual archaeologist Scott Waring is back in
the spotlight with his latest discovery: mysterious structures on the
surface of the Moon.
In photographs of the Moon obtained by the American space agency NASA, he discovered something that raises many questions.
Waring’s
discovery became the subject of discussion among lovers of the
mysteries of space. The ufologist said that the photograph was published
by NASA just a few days ago, and immediately after that he began a
detailed analysis of it.
According to Waring, the photograph shows
structures that could not have formed naturally. These unusual objects
could have been built by extraterrestrial civilizations, the researcher
believes.
However,
the most surprising thing is that, according to Waring, NASA is not
even trying to hide this information. Skeptics argue that if evidence of
alien intervention was actually found on the Moon, the agency would try
to hide such facts.
However, Waring believes that the agency is
deliberately disclosing this information to generate public interest and
attention to aliens.
The researcher also calls on NASA to provide
more details about the origin of these mysterious structures and
conduct more research.
When we think of UFO crashes, the first thing that comes to mind is
the famous Roswell incident of 1947, when a mysterious object crashed on
a ranch in New Mexico, sparking decades of speculation and controversy.
But
what if Roswell was not the first, nor the only, UFO crash on Earth?
What if there was an earlier and more obscure case that involved a
fascist dictator, a secret department, and a possible cover-up by the US
military?
That is the intriguing story of the 1933 UFO crash in
Italy, which has recently resurfaced thanks to new allegations and
evidence from researchers and former intelligence officials.
According to these sources, a bell-shaped flying saucer crashed near Magenta, a town west of Milan, on June 13, 1933.
The
craft was reportedly recovered by the Italian authorities and taken to a
nearby airfield, where it was examined by a team of experts led by none
other than Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio.
The documents include two June 1933 telegrams in Italian demanding ‘absolute silence’ over an ‘alleged landing on national soil of unknown aircraft’. Credit: dailymail.co.uk
Little is
known about the first “UFO” case in Italy: the fascist regime
immediately secreted the story. It was Roberto Pinotti, founder and
secretary of the National UFO Center, who tried to dissolve the mist of
mystery that surrounds the case.
At the “Ufology” conference,
which was held near Lake Maggiore, in Arona, he explained that “the
remains of the UFO, which in the drawings is described as a cylindrical
aircraft, with a bottleneck at the end, with portholes on the side, from
which white and red lights came out, were taken to the Siai-Marchetti
warehouses in Vergiate, where they remained for 12 years.
The
bodies of the pilots, preserved in formalin, were studied for a long
time. It is known that they were 1.80 tall, had light hair, and
oriental-looking blue eyes.
Another document, dated June 13, threatens the ‘immediate arrest’ and ‘maximum penalties’ for any journalists reporting news of an ‘aircraft of unknown nature and origin’. Credit: dailymail.co.uk
It
is therefore understandable why Mussolini thought they were German
pilots, despite the authoritative contrary opinion of Marconi himself.
The
hypothesis advanced by Pinotti could also redefine the history of the
pre-war period: “The Duce believed, perhaps, that it would be
appropriate to ally himself with a military power like that of Nazi
Germany, capable of producing an aircraft never seen before, rather than
having her as an enemy.”
The craft itself was said to be made of
an unknown metal that was resistant to heat and corrosion, and had a
complex propulsion system and electromagnetic fields.
The Italian
dictator Benito Mussolini, who was fascinated by the phenomenon, ordered
the creation of a secret department called “Gabinetto RS/33” (or RS/33
Cabinet) to study the saucer and its technology. The department was
headed by Marconi and included scientists, engineers, and military
officers. Their goal was to reverse-engineer the alien craft and use it
for military purposes.
However,
their plans were thwarted by the end of World War II, when Italy was
invaded by the Allied forces. According to some accounts, the American
troops seized the saucer and its remains and shipped them to the US,
where they became part of a covert program that collected and studied
multiple “non-human” flying saucers.
This program was allegedly
overseen by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a highly secretive
intelligence agency that operates spy satellites.
The existence
of this program was recently revealed by David Grusch, a former NRO
officer who claims to have firsthand knowledge of it. Grusch says that
he has seen documents and photos that prove that the US government has
obtained several alien crafts over the years, including the one from
Italy in 1933. He also says that he has spoken to other former
intelligence officers who were part of the program and confirmed his
story.
The 1933 UFO crash in Italy may be one of the oldest and
most forgotten cases in UAP history, but it may also be one of the most
important ones. It may hold clues to the origin and purpose of these
mysterious visitors, as well as their impact on human history and
technology.
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