Western satellites are predicted to collapse 🛰

✨Academician Herbert Yefemov predicted the rapid deterioration of Western satellites - we are talking about more than 2,000 apparatuses of the American Starlink constellation and more than 400 apparatuses of the British OneWeb.

"In a decade, these satellites will break down, becoming just unmanageable junk and creating an unprecedented congestion of narrow orbital layers with space debris, with an uncontrollable increase in the number of collisions," he said.

Efremov also noted that satellite constellations will be renewed, and this, in turn, will lead to a further increase in the number of new devices on the Earth's orbit✨

#Satellites
👉 @AstroMechanics

Why can't we see stars during the day?

✨It's all because of the nearest star to us, the Sun.

Although the Sun is not the brightest or largest star, the distance between it and our planet is so small that sunlight literally floods the Earth, making all other weak light invisible✨

#Stars
👉 @AstroMechanics

What causes solar flares🌞?

✨These phenomena occur because the Sun has its own magnetic field. And flares occur in areas where magnetic fields of opposite polarity collide in a confined space.

Even though we already realize what solar flares are, scientists still can't predict when they will happen. So they commonly take us by surprise✨

#SunFlares
👉 @AstroMechanics

The direction of the tail of comet NEOWISE changed due to the Earth's motion

✨Like all comets, the blue ion tail is always directed away from the Sun.

Between July 17 and July 25, 2020 (when these images were taken) the Earth was moving in its orbit around the Sun, and because of this the Sun's position in the sky was also changed.

Consequently, the tail shifted✨
#TailOfComet
👉 @AstroMechanics

The first-ever spacecraft collision occurred in 2009

✨The long-decommissioned Russian military satellite Cosmos-2251 collided in its orbit with the active American satellite Iridium-33.

Such collisions are now trying to be avoided as debris can threaten not only other satellites but also the ISS✨

#Spacecraft
👉 @AstroMechanics

One of the first to suggest launching something like a satellite into space was the science fiction writer

✨In 1945, Arthur Clarkson suggested that a satellite could be placed in orbit in such a way that it would move in the same direction and at the same speed as the Earth. So-called "geostationary satellites" could be used for communications.

Scientists did not get Clarkson - until October 4, 1957✨

#Fact
👉 @AstroMechanics

NASA plans to send a flagship mission to Uranus by 2049

✨A committee of NASA scientists has recommended that a flagship mission to Uranus be NASA's highest-priority major planetary science mission for the next decade.

Uranus is a virtually unexplored world; NASA's only visit to the seventh planet was a short flyby on January 24, 1986, during which scientists discovered the planet's rings and several additional moons.

At this point, an orbiter and probe to Uranus is not a specific mission, but a concept✨

#Astroinfo
👉 @AstroMechanics

Europeans explore caves on the Moon🗻

✨For a long time, NASA representatives have been curious about the underground world on the Moon. The European Space Agency also began to study it. Specialists argue that the existing caves on our planet's satellite may be quite suitable for the construction of space bases.

It is no secret that the Moon has no atmosphere. Radiation on the surface is extremely high. In addition, meteorites that fall on the moon have nowhere to burn. Therefore, during the construction of various structures for the life of the colonizers must be protected.

According to researchers, the best option is the lunar caves. Also water and minerals can be found there, both of which are useful for life support of lunar bases✨

#MoonCaves
👉 @AstroMechanics

SDSS 153636.22+044127.0

✨A binary black holes have been found sitting in the center of quasar SDSS 153636.22+044127.0 at a distance of about 4 billion light years from Earth✨

#Blackhole
👉 @AstroMechanics

What is the minimal size of black holes?

✨The mass of a black hole formed by the collapse of a larger star is limited by the Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit. Its exact value is not known, as it depends on many poorly understood parameters. In general, this limit lies between 2.14 and 2.17 solar masses.

All stars lighter than 2.14 solar masses are definitely not black holes. The highly probable BH candidates known today have significantly higher masses, from 6 solar masses and higher.

For primary (small) black holes the lower value is the Planck mass: 2.176⋅10^(-8) kg. But primary black holes are hypothetical objects and have not been discovered yet✨

#Blackhole
👉 @AstroMechanics

Rigel (Beta Orion) are 4 stars that are visible in the sky as one bright blue dot

✨The supergiant and three main-sequence stars rotate around a common center of mass with a period of 24 thousand years✨

#BrightBlueDot
👉 @AstroMechanics

Newly discovered glow of Martian atmosphere defies simple explanation

✨Scientists from the Mars mission, launched by the UAE, have observed a wavy, snake-shaped atmospheric glow that stretches over half of the Red Planet's surface.

This discovery of a "wavy, discrete" atmospheric glow, which was observed high in the atmosphere and is the result of the interaction of solar radiation with magnetic fields.

The intensity of the magnetic field of Mars is heterogeneous, and, in some places, it lacks field at all, so it is difficult to track the glow of the atmosphere on this planet✨

#NewDiscovery
👉 @AstroMechanics

New Horizons approached Pluto

New Horizons approached Pluto at a distance of 12,500 kilometers. For comparison, satellites in geostationary orbit "hang" over the Earth at a distance of 36,000 kilometers, which is almost 3 times farther

The apparatus has spent 9.5 years in transit and flew about 5 billion kilometers. At such a scale of travel, the accuracy of the "hit" is amazing.

#Pluto
👉 @AstroMechanics

Experiment to grow plants in soil from the Moon proved poor results

Scientists at the University of Florida planted cress seeds in 4 grams of lunar soil from each of the three Apollo missions and tracked their growth for 20 days.

Within 60 hours of planting, the research team found that the seeds had sprouted in all soil samples. Between day 6 and 8, the team removed a few seedlings so that only one plant grew for every gram of soil.

On the removed plants, they found that the roots grown in the lunar soil were stunted compared to plants grown in Earth's volcanic soil.

#Experiment
👉 @AstroMechanics

Moon Dust

In 1972, Jack Schmitt and Gene Cernan got so caught up in being the last humans on the Moon that they forgot to "wipe their feet" before entering their landing module. Which, in general, is rather surprising as they already knew how awful that lunar dust was.

It had already managed to clog all the articulations of their spacesuits during the mission. So much so that they couldn't move properly. And the dust was so sharp that it rubbed through three layers of Kevlar-like fabric on their boots!

Such negligence brought this very lunar dust inside their ship, and they had to fly all the way home with it. Constantly making sure it didn't kill them.

#Moondust
👉 @AstroMechanics

Fire in Space🔥

✨On July 18, 2014, astronaut Reid Wiseman managed to produce a jellyfish-like fire sphere in an experiment. The results of his experiments could lead to better engines on Earth✨.

#Fire
👉 @AstroMechanics

Is the speed of light really that fast?

✨A beam of light makes 7.5 revolutions per second around the Earth. Seems fast, let's zoom in.

It already takes 1.255 seconds to get to the Moon for this procedure. It took 3 minutes for the beam of light to travel from Earth to Mars.

Conclusion: the speed of light is not that fast, especially on the scale of the Universe✨

#Light
👉 @AstroMechanics

#Fun😂
👉 @AstroMechanics