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Scientists have discovered strange "dust moons" around the Earth that follow our planet from afar. In this image, the central region of the Kordylewski dust cloud is visible (bright red pixels). Inclined straight lines are traces of satellites. The L5 point in white is the L5 Lagrange Earth-Moon point.
Credit: J. Slíz-Balogh
The dust clouds orbiting the Earth have finally been confirmed after more than half a century of controversy, New Research finds.
In deep space, there are five points where the gravitational pull of the Earth and the Moon balance. Two of these so-called Lagrange points, L4 and L5, form an equal triangle between the Earth and the Moon and move around the Earth when the Moon orbits the planet. All objects at L4 or L5 may remain in relatively stable positions about 234 000 km (384 000 km) from the Earth and the Moon, with the exception of any interference caused by the gravitational forces of the sun and other bodies.
Lagrange dots may exist between other body pairs and previous research had detected more than one million asteroids at sun – Jupiter L4 and L5 points, as well as l '. asteroid 2010 TK7 at Sun-Earth point L4. Previous work has also suggested that at L5 Earth-Moon, two clouds of dust may exist. They were first reported by Polish astronomer Kazimierz Kordylewski in 1961. [Earth Quiz: Do You Really Know Your Planet?]
The researchers suggest that they may have finally confirmed that a pair of dust clouds is real. Scientists have detailed their findings in two online studies, published Sept. 1 and Oct. 1 in the Royal Astronomical Society's Avis journal.
Artist illustration depicting the Kordylewski cloud in the night sky (with greatly improved brightness) at the time of observations.
Credit: G. Horváth
Kordylewski's clouds are exceptionally weak, and can be seen with the naked eye or with normal cameras largely dependent on the state of the time. As a result, many scientists have doubted their existence for decades, Gábor Horváth, a physicist at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary and co-author of both studies, told Space.com.
Kordylewski clouds to see how they formed and how light scattered or reflected by these clouds can be detected. They focused on a feature of this scattered or reflected light called polarization. All the light waves can wavy from top to bottom, left and right, or at any angle between them, and the reflected or reflected light is generally polarized in the same way, depending on the scattering angle or reflection.
Detect Kordylewski clouds with the help of a digital camera in a private observatory in Hungary. The camera was equipped with polarizing filters that let in light only with specific polarizations.
"We now find new evidence to observe the existence of Kordylewski dust clouds around the L5 point of the Earth-Moon system," Judit Slíz-Balogh, astronomer of the Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest and lead author of both studies, told Space.com
Mosaic of the polarization angle around point L5 (white point) of the Earth-Moon system. The five rectangular windows correspond to the fields of view of the polarimetric imaging telescope with which the polarization diagrams of the Kordylewski dust cloud were measured.
Credit: J. Slíz-Balogh
Images of the alleged localization of a Kordylewski cloud revealed a polarized light reflected by the dust extending well outside the field of view of the camera. This corresponds to the predictions of scientists on the appearance of a Kordylewski cloud.
"Kordylewski clouds are two of the most difficult objects to find and, although they are as close to Earth as scientists in astronomy," Slíz-Balogh said in a statement. "It's intriguing to confirm that our planet has dusty pseudo-satellites in orbit alongside our lunar neighbor."
In the future, scientists will be able to see if dust clouds also exist at the L4 Earth-Moon point, Slíz-Balogh added.
Given the stability of L4 and L5 Earth-Moon points, they are often considered as potential sites for space stations. Future research on Kordylewski clouds could help determine their stability and determine if their dust poses a potential threat to equipment and astronauts at points L4 and L5, said the researchers.
Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter . @ cqchoi . Follow us @Spacedotcom Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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