2023-06-15 10:54:45
MADRID, 15 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission is providing new evidence that a violent and catastrophic event created the Geminids, one of the most intense meteor showers.
Most of these periodic phenomena in the night sky come from comets, which are made of ice and dust. When a comet travels close to the Sun, the ice evaporates and releases gas, breaking off small pieces of the comet and creating a trail of dust. Slowly, this repeated process fills the comet’s orbit with material that produces a meteor shower when Earth passes through the stream.
However, the Geminid stream appears to originate from an asteroid, a chunk of rock and metal, called 3200 Phaethon. Asteroids like Phaethon are not typically affected by the Sun’s heat like comets, leaving scientists wondering what caused the Phaethon stream to form in the night sky.
“What’s really strange is that we know that Phaethon is an asteroid, but as it flies close to the Sun, it seems to have some sort of temperature-driven activity. Most asteroids don’t do that,” he said. it’s a statement Jamey Szalay, researcher at Princeton University and co-author of the scientific article, published in Planetary Science Journal.
The research builds on previous work by Szalay and several of his colleagues from the Parker Solar Probe mission to put together a picture of the structure and behavior of the large cloud of dust that swirls through the innermost solar system. Taking advantage of Parker’s flight path, an orbit that rotates just millions of miles from the Sun, closer than any spacecraft in history, scientists were able to get the best direct view yet of dust grains blown off by passing comets and asteroids.
Built and operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Parker Solar Probe does not carry a dedicated dust counter that provides accurate readings on grain mass, composition, velocity, and direction. However, the dust grains fling the spacecraft along its trajectory, and the high-velocity impacts create unique electrical signals, or clouds of plasma. These impact clouds produce unique electrical signals that are picked up by various sensors on the probe’s FIELDS instrument, which measures the electric and magnetic fields near the Sun.
To learn about the origin of the Geminid stream, the scientists used these Parker data to model three possible formation scenarios and then compared these models to existing models created from Earth-based observations.
They found that the violent models were more consistent with Parker’s data. This means that a sudden and powerful event, such as a high-speed collision with another body or a gas explosion, among other possibilities, was likely. created the Geminid stream.
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