Technology today – Japanese researchers invent a new way to monitor space dust

A large amount, up to 1000 kilograms, falls to Earth each day from the remains of asteroids, comets, and meteors, and these tiny remains are called interplanetary dust, and scientists usually observe them with radar or telescopes. optics, and recently researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan, have achieved a method that combines the two methods, and deepens observations like It depends on the size and composition of the dust, thus improving our knowledge of objects space. And they recently published their research in the Journal of Space and Planetary Sciences. Ryo Osawa, an astronomer at the University’s Institute of Astronomy, said: “We observe them with ground radars and optical telescopes, and the radars are useful for covering long areas and collecting many readings, but optical telescopes provide more detailed information for our studies, so we decided to block that. The gap between them, to improve our oversight capacity. ”

Indeed, Osawa and his team were able to combine the radar and visual observation capabilities, as they used the Kesu Observatory and the middle and upper atmosphere radar installation. They are relatively close (173 km from each other), and their proximity is important, as convergence increases the interconnection between their data. Next, they developed software to process the huge amount of data that ‘they’ve collected and distinguished tiny meteors, in a project that could help astronomers study space objects and the solar system with unprecedented assistance.

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