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Earth-Killing Superflare Could Be Unleashed by Our Sun

March 26, 2016 By John Birks Leave a Comment

Flares often occur on the surface of the Sun, but none was big enough to affect us since the 1800’s.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – The scientists fear that an Earth-killing superflare could be unleashed by our Sun and destroy our planet as we know it. Astronomers have been studying solar flares and superflares emitted by the suns in our galaxy. It seems that our own is quite tame comparing to others. But for how long?

Some researchers fear that an Earth-killing superflare could be unleashed by our Sun anytime, and it would wipe out all life on the Green Planet. But what are the odds of that happening?

First of all, we can look back at the Carrington Event that took place in between August 28^th and September 2^nd, 1859. At the time, the solar flare caused a geomagnetic storm that affected all mechanical appliances and telecommunications.

If nineteenth-century people were affected by a solar flare, imagine the damage such an incident would cause today when the society is as dependent on technology as it is on air. And the Carrington flare is insignificant compared to the superflares that scientists have observed in other galaxies.

A team of researchers at Aarhus University looked into the possibility of our sun producing an Earth-killing superflare.

According to Christoffer Karoff, the lead researcher of the study, our Sun could not be capable of unleashing such a deadly flare. It seems that the astronomers found a connection between the superflares and the magnetic fields present on the surface of the stars. Our heat emitting, life-nurturing star is not compatible with those findings, so we could breathe deep and relax.

In order to reach these conclusions, Karoff’s team studied over 100,000 suns with China’s “Guo Shou Jing” telescope. They found that a mere ten percent out of the total number of stars studied were capable of emitting solar flares.

These same stars had a magnetic field weaker than our sun, so it seems that for the moment we shouldn’t worry that we will die because of the super-hot plasma that will cover the planet in the case of a superflare.

Or, in the best-case scenario, the atmosphere would be dramatically changed, and we would die due to intoxication or asphyxiation. But researchers said that the theory stating that an Earth-killing superflare could be unleashed by our Sun and destroy all life on Earth is “highly unlikely.”

Image source: Wikimedia

Lunar Axis Shifted Billions of Years Ago

March 25, 2016 By John Birks Leave a Comment

The moon still surprises researchers even if it has been the first celestial body studied by them.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – According to the latest research, the lunar axis shifted billions of years ago, three to be more exact. The imaginary line was moved by six degrees, making the “man on the moon figure” change its position. And even though the lunar axis shifted billions of years ago, the scientists were still able to find evidence of the change today.

Matthew Siegler of Southern Methodist and a couple of his colleagues analyzed the data gathered by NASA on the levels of polar hydrogen present on the surface of the moon. The gas is believed to freeze in north and south pole craters that are protected from sun rays.

But the ice craters are not aligned with the poles, and this led the scientists to believe that the lunar axis shifted billions of years ago. Their theory is also supported by the fact that the curious offset presents itself in the same manner at both poles, but they are also tilted in opposite directions.

Siegler believes that the change probably occurred around three billion years ago, and it lasted for one billion years. The shift made “the man on the moon” to change positions, turning his nose towards our planet as the axis moved.

And the phenomenon is not that common. A polar relocation is a rare occurrence and astronomers only detected the phenomenon on Mars, Earth, Europa (one of Jupiter’s satellites) and Enceladus (Saturn’s satellite).

The strange shift usually happens when there is a significant change in the moon’s or planet’s mass. Siegler’s team believes that volcanic activity was the reason behind the changes. Violent eruptions changed the mass distribution in the equator and the poles, causes the axis to tilt.

This means that the ancient volcanoes that were active on the moon’s surface billions of years ago melted a significant part of the mantle and formed the dark patches that can be seen with the naked eye at night.

Due to the fact that Earth’s satellite has only a single region of crust, the Procellarum, the moon shifted its position after the mantle was melted and the mass was modified.

And the lunar ice could also be the answer to another question that has been tormenting astronomers for a long period of time. The formations could explain the presence of water on both Earth and its natural satellite.

Further analysis could show whether or not the water from the two celestial bodies originated from a single source.

Image source: Wikimedia

Big Asteroid Might Pass Near Earth

February 6, 2016 By Joe Hennessey Leave a Comment

An asteroid is planetary mass object that travels through space at incredible speeds.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – According to NASA a big asteroid might pass near Earth next month. But don’t go calling Bruce Willis just yet, it seems that the 100-foot rock trajectory will not intertwine with our planet’s position. But the asteroid will be visible to the naked eye, the National Aeronautics Space Agency says.

The space rock was first spotted by the scientists in 2013. According to the researchers at the NASA’s Pasadena Laboratory of Jet Propulsion in California, the asteroid might get as close as 17,100 kilometers (11,000 miles) from Earth’s surface somewhere around March 5^th.

The distance sounds big, but the asteroid will actually come closer to our planet than most of our artificial communications satellites that orbit our planet. The distance is equivalent to the 20^th part of the distance between us and the Moon.

But you better brush up your telescope if you really want to see the 2013 TX68, because its trajectory is somewhat erratic and it could end flying by us from as far as 14 million kilometers (9 million miles) away. The good news is that all of the simulations predicted that the asteroid might venture off further, and there is no collision risk, whatsoever.

The manager from the office of Studies of Near-Earth Objects at NASA, Paul Chodas, says that the asteroid was visible in 2013 when it last approached Earth for as long as three days before passing into the daytime skies and losing its trace. For this year, he finds it hard to offer a prediction on where exactly people should look in order to see it.

The next time the 2013 TX68 will pass near our planet will be on the 28^th of September 2017, and NASA has calculated that there is one chance in 250 million of an impact between the asteroid and Earth. But it is very likely that future observances of the object will reduce the probabilities.

According to Chodas, the next three visits of the asteroid will pose no danger to our planet as its trajectory will avoid our position.

The last time when an asteroid actually impacted with Earth’s surface was in 2013. Then object was half the size of the 2013 TX68 and it landed in a remote Russian area, Chelyabinsk. Even though the area was largely unoccupied, the Russian authorities reported around 1000 injured individuals.

If the 2013 TX68 will ever hit us, the predictions are far worse than in the Chelyabinsk incident. The explosion could be twice as powerful, and the number of injured people would greatly depend on the area in which the asteroid falls.

So it seems we might actually have to call Bruce Willis after all.

Image source: www.flickr.com

NASA’s Messenger Reveals Mercury’s Extremely Old Magnetic Field

May 11, 2015 By John Birks Leave a Comment

During an 8,700 mph plunge onto Mercury’s surface, NASA’s Messenger reveals Mercury’s extremely old magnetic field, the administration reports on Sunday.

The National and Space Aeronautics Administration have managed to gather more insights related to the structure of the much-debated universe.

Further light was cast upon the enigmatic cosmos as NASA’s Messenger mission approached Mercury these past days.

According to the declaration released by the Administration, the planet has a magnetic field that appears to be a lot older than scientists expected it to be.

This discovery was made thanks to the latest information that the mission transmitted. Messenger plunged on Mercury’s surface on Sunday with an 8,700 mph velocity.

According to planetary scientist, Catherine Johnson, the magnetic signals registered on Mercury are so low that they can barely be detected and analyzed by NASA’s experts. Luckily, Messenger has made this possible through the close-analysis that it managed to make on the planet.

Data shows that the closest Planet to the Sun has a magnetic field that is older than the one on Earth. It appears to have been formed approximately 400 million years ago.

Johnson further explained that Mercury’s magnetic field might have been just as strong as the Earth’s, but now its intensity has significantly decreased.

Much like our beloved planet, Mercury is said to have formed its magnetic field on account of its liquid metal existing at its core.

Although the planet is very small, it continues to maintain its heat, thus generating a powerful magnetic field. Catherine Johnson further analyzed this subject in NASA’s Science journal, providing passionate people with revealing data and explanations.

Messenger, NASA’s mission on Mercury, has successfully accomplished its tasks in space. The spacecraft was launched in 2011 and has ever since contributed with useful information to the Administration’s database.

The recent research on Mercury’s surface was made possible because the mission got so close to the planet until it eventually plummeted on it.

While the discovery of Mercury’s light-density metal core has partially satisfied scientists’ thirst for knowledge, it has also raised many more questions in relation to the planet’s formation.

Researchers plan to deeply study the phenomenon of Mercury’s magnetic field formation and to determine whether the planet bears more resemblances to the Earth.
Image Source: National Geographic

Scientists Try To Solve Mistery Behind The Moon’s Origin

April 9, 2015 By Tara Hamilton Leave a Comment

The Moon could have been formed after a huge collision between Earth and an object that was very similar in composition to our planet.

This new theory could help elucidate why Earth and Moon have so much in common in rock composition, more than experts would expect from a giant impact. But this is only one study regarding the origin of the Moon that were published recently in the prestigious journal Nature.

Two other research papers speak about recently unknown differences in lunar rocks. Researchers believe they are crucial in drawing the picture of the Moon’s history.

Scientists from Israel and France have managed to simulate the turmoil of the early Solar System. The study quantifies the number and versions of collisions that might have happened during that time.

In its beginnings, the Earth would have been the scene of an entire string of heavy collisions with other planets in the forming stage. According to the experts, the last of these was a cataclysmic impact with a planetary rock just ten times lighter than Earth. The theory suggests that the resulting debris eventually merged and the Moon was thus formed.

Previous studies believed that the planet that hit Earth was a different type of space object, but new data denies these theories.

“They are almost identical. This is one of the major challenges for this really beautiful giant impact hypothesis,” said Dr Perets, from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr Perets and his colleagues discovered in their simulations that the planet that hit earth might, in fact, have been made of almost identical materials to those already present on Earth, that is why only subtle differences are observed in lunar material.

The new studies have found an interesting explanation for what happened subsequently to both the Earth and the Moon. Researchers have proposed that both the Earth and Moon gathered a huge amount of extra matter, during a subsequent period when the two were bombarded by large numbers of meteorites.

Even if the Moon and Earth had originally similar building blocks, our planet had a much stronger gravity and deprived the satellite from a balance of ingredients during that period.

The two other new studies of lunar rocks, one from Germany and the other from the US, discovered evidence for this shift, after looking at samples from the Apollo missions with new high tech equipment.

They found that a small but important difference when compared lunar rocks to Earth rocks: an altered ratio in the metal’s different isotopes.

Image Source: Feel Grafix

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