An astrophile needs to know that Earth will soon welcome a new moon for a short period. I didn’t make the story, it is true. Earth with the help of its gravity will pull an asteroid towards it and will set it free after two months. As per the finding by the scientists, an asteroid of about 10 meters in diameter, will be captured by the Earth’s gravity and will return to its path that is an orbit around the Sun in November. This finding is based on the trajectory, size, and speed of the asteroid.

This celestial phenomenon is said to be a “temporarily captured flyby” in which an asteroid enters Earth’s gravitational orbit but does not complete multiple orbits. This phenomenon was seen in 2006 also when an asteroid stayed in Earth’s orbit and remained there for nearly half a year before leaving. And another came in 2020. This phenomenon takes place regularly and Earth captures small asteroids from the Near Earth Object population. Those who have an interest in these things need to know that though it presents a great opportunity for scientists, it will be faint for the naked eye. You can use a telescope to witness this phenomenon and better understand gravitational interactions.

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The last week of December met with freezing temperatures in the Eastern cities of America. Several parts faced blizzards and snowstorms during Christmas week. More than 50 inches deep snow covered areas of upstate New York and Canada. Just one week later and at the start of the new year, unexpected warm temperatures have been dramatically surging in these areas. The AccuWeather forecasters have predicted that warm weather will prevail these areas making it feel like spring has arrived earlier than its date.

NASA Earth’s tweet on Jan 5, 2023 shows an animation of the odd weather change calculated from December 2022 to early January 2023. This, was measured by using the Goddard Earth Observing System (GOES) global model that calculates physical processes in the atmosphere.

Judah Cohen, a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a forecaster with Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) on analysing the data, observes that the polar vortex (band of strong westerly winds) that circulates around the North Pole in winter has been extending making it weak. The strong Polar vortex prevents the cold Arctic air from spilling. When this Polar vortex weakens, the Jetstream in the troposphere tends to extend southwards letting the cold Arctic air to flow down into the midlatitudes. The Polar vortex stretches for at the most a week before it settles into its original position. this sudden straightening of the Polar vortex can be studied as a key reason for the sudden warming up of the these areas. 

Another concern from the scientists studying the stratosphere is that the disruption of the Polar vortex has become more common as global temperatures have been rising since the the 1980’s.

As some people disagree that these weather changes calculated for a short amount of time can give accurate data, Cohen states in the NASA earth observatory, “Not everybody agrees with us. It’s still contested science, but I am confident that we’ll see more and more examples of these stretching events in the stratosphere followed shortly after by cold snaps in the midlatitudes as the Arctic climate warms and changes…The stretching of the polar vortex we saw in December 2022 definitely fits that pattern.”

2022 ended with a shiver, but the start of 2023 broke a sweat. 🥶🥵

This weather whiplash may have been caused by changes in the polar vortex, the band of strong westerly winds over the Arctic. Details: https://t.co/gnOAqDOncS pic.twitter.com/4QDmgsNsE5

— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) January 5, 2023

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NASA’s ongoing DART mission, which stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test is the first to purposely change the motion of a body present in our solar system. There will be a measurable change henceforth. 

The main event: Collision occurs 

This major event happened on September 26, 2022, at 11.15 pm UTC. The NASA spacecraft hit an asteroid namely Di morphos at that moment. 

The DART mission by NASA – hard work, efforts, patience, and the success 

The DART mission is set to provide the first test of the technique which can be executed in the future. This will assist in redirecting asteroids that are detected on a collision course with Earth. This event of the collision was live-streamed online. 

The DART mission dates back to 24th November 2021. The mission was successful. This would definitely be an inspiration to future missions for target asteroid collisions. We may be able to deflect asteroids approaching the Earth’s vicinity before causing any potential harm. 

Ending lines

This event will be written in the minds of space enthusiasts and experts internationally. The DART mission was lauded for the efforts and hard work put in. This was the first ever planetary defense test by NASA which was put to test and led to a huge success. It took 10 months or more to attain this success. It led to final learning that the Earth can be saved from asteroids if any approach in the near future. What felt like a Hollywood blockbuster was a real-life event and an important part of science and space history.

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ELon Musk took to twitter about how we are utilising earth’s total energy capacity. Elon was basically replying to a tweet by Nature Portfolio in which they stated Decisions on investment and policy are made under the assumption of continuous economic expansion. Thomas W. Murphy Jr writes in @NaturePhysics how physical limits may soon end this phase of development, as foreshadowed by The Limits to Growth.

To this Elon replied Technically true, but Earth’s economy is extremely far from physical limits. Energy is the foundation of the economy, but we’re using a very tiny amount of available energy, even if we only used PV.

Elon has been an advocate of green energy and has been claiming that the dependency on these non renewable sources are harming the environment.

Reliable energy access is the foundation of modern life and all modern economies. However, millions of people around the world still lack access to electricity, and billions more lack enough energy to be prosperous, competitive, and climate resilient. To lift all people out of poverty, we must raise global ambitions and move up the energy ladder. That next step is the Modern Energy Minimum.

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The border between France and Switzerland is surrounded by a circular machine that is located 328 feet underground. This machine may hold the key to unlocking the universe’s mysteries. Or, as others have suggested, it may obliterate all life on Earth. It’s the biggest machine in the world, and it will look at the smallest particles in the galaxy. The Large Hadron Collider LHC is the name of the machine.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, is the project manager for the LHC. In the vicinity of Geneva, Switzerland, the LHC connects the CERN accelerator complex. The LHC will launch protons and ions at speeds close to the speed of light once it is turned on. The LHC will cause the beams to collide, and then record the events that follow from the collision. Scientists anticipate that these developments will reveal more about the origins and composition of the universe.

The LHC is the largest and most potent particle accelerator ever constructed. To make new discoveries, thousands of scientists from hundreds of nations collaborate and compete with one another. Data is collected at six selected sites around the LHC for various experiments. As some of these experiments overlap, researchers will compete to be the first to find significant new data.

Increasing our understanding of the universe is the aim of the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC was not established with the intention of using the scientific discoveries made therein for immediate use, even though they may do so in the future. It is a tool designed to expand our knowledge. The lack of a practical application may be unexpected given that the LHC costs billions of dollars and necessitates the cooperation of multiple nations.

Let us know what LHC is looking for: Scientists devised a theory known as the standard model in an effort to comprehend our universe, including how it functions and its true structure. The fundamental particles that give the universe its physical characteristics are defined and explained by this hypothesis. It incorporates aspects of both quantum theory and Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Additionally, it covers the strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and electromagnetic force—three of the four fundamental forces of the universe. Several predictions about the universe are made by the Standard Model, and many of them appear to be accurate based on numerous experiments. However, there are still some unproven aspects of the approach. One of these is a hypothetical particle known as the Higgs boson.

Concerns about mass may be addressed by the Higgs boson particle. Why is mass present in the matter? Scientists have discovered particles like neutrinos that are massless. Why is it that certain particles have mass while others don’t? Many theories have been put forth by scientists to explain the existence of mass. The Higgs mechanism is the simplest of these. According to this idea, a particle and a matching mediating force could account for why some particles have mass. It’s possible that the hypothetical particle doesn’t even exist; it has never been seen. Some researchers are hopeful that the LHC’s events will reveal proof of the Higgs boson particle’s existence.

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The transition zone between the mantle, the planet’s rocky middle layer, and the molten metal core may be a diamond-producing region. According to a recent laboratory experiment, the elements iron, carbon, and water—all potential components found near the core-mantle boundary—can combine to make diamonds when subjected to high temperatures and pressures. If this process also takes place deep into the Earth, it might be able to explain the mantle’s abnormalities, such as why it contains more carbon than is normal.

The discoveries may also provide light on mysterious structures located deep at the core-mantle border, where earthquake waves demonstrate significant slowing. These areas often referred to as “ultra-low velocity zones,” might be just a few miles broad or hundreds of miles across and are linked to odd mantle structures, such as two enormous blobs under Africa and the Pacific Ocean. Nobody is certain of their exact nature. Some experts believe they are made of components from the very early Earth and are 4.5 billion years old. But according to a recent study, some of these zones may have developed as a result of plate tectonics(opens in new tab), which began perhaps 3 billion years after Earth’s origin.

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According to recent findings, Earth is bombarded by high-energy comets every 200 million years when it passes through the spiral arms of its galaxy, and this bombardment may deepen the planet’s continental crust. The research team believes that comets at the frontier of the solar system interact with the dense gas clouds in the spiral arms, sending them hurtling toward Earth.

By analyzing zircon crystals from the North American Craton in Greenland and the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia, two of Earth’s oldest continents and locations where the planet’s earliest continental history is preserved, the scientists came to their conclusion. It has been possible to construct a geological timeline that spans 1 billion years, from 2.8 billion to 3.8 billion years ago, during the Archean aeon, by using the decay of uranium in zircon crystals in these areas. Geologists might learn more about how Earth evolved to be the sole planet with continents and active plate tectonics thanks to this chronology.

Scientists can identify times in Earth’s history when juvenile magma, or magma containing components that have never reached the surface before, was present as a hint of crust creation by looking for isotopes of the element hafnium in zircon. Over a significant period of time, Kirkland and his team discovered that patterns of crust production matched galactic years. The time it takes for the sun to complete one cycle around the Milky Way’s nucleus is known as a galactic year. Examinations of oxygen isotopes also confirmed these results, which showed a consistent pattern. The scientists came to the conclusion that Earth’s orbit around the Galactic Center influences the planet’s geology.

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To comprehend how stars and other celestial entities were created in the universe, one must undertake a highly challenging process that calls for extensive investigation. Based on centuries of scientific study and space observations, we do have some answers to the question of how the Earth was formed. This mystery has been the subject of various scientific investigations.

The history of the Earth’s growth resembles that of the Solar System. Earth, the third planet from the sun, is the only place where there are probably living things. Earth is the only other world that has liquid water on its surface.

We will attempt to do so here to gain a better understanding of the processes and reasons involved in the formation of the Earth.

The three stages it took for Earth to reach its current state

To get to where it is now, Earth passed through three stages.
Earth is believed to have gone through three separate stages of evolution, similar to the other inner planets.

1. The accretion stage describes the formation of a planet from solar system particles that were already present when they collided to produce ever-larger objects.

2. The extremely young planet Earth was struck by a protoplanet in the second phase. This is thought to have occurred more than 4.5 billion years ago and may have helped shape the moon.

3. During its last stages of development, the planet was pummeled by asteroids.

How did the Earth’s early atmosphere function?

Scientists believe that the majority of the early Earth’s atmosphere was composed of the elements hydrogen and helium. As the globe changed and the crust began to form, volcanic eruptions were common. These volcanoes caused the atmosphere of the Earth to be filled with water vapor, carbon dioxide, and ammonia.

As a result, the seas began to form throughout time, and eventually, basic life began to emerge close to the oceans.

Gas and dust particles

A moving cloud of gas and dust covered a section of the Milky Way Galaxy billions of years ago. The remnants of a long-dead star that had undergone a supernova explosion were also present. The gas and dust particles were initially far away even though they floated.
But soon after, a nearby star also had a supernova explosion, sending shock waves of energy and light through space and drawing the gas and dust in this cloud closer.

The formation of the disc and the sun

The cloud of gas and dust quickly gathered into a massive ball, which became bigger due to gravity’s gravitational attraction. The interaction between the gas and dust particles and the intense nuclear reaction inside the cloud ball caused it to change into a sun-like star. In contrast, the protoplanetary disk, a large disk of gas and dust, started to spin around the sun.

Formation of baby planets

As the gas and dust particles progressively re-approached one another, the process of planet formation started. The gas and dust particles continued to orbit the sun but eventually began to mix and enlarge. Greater quantities of dust and gas particles started to coalesce from these bodies, and one of them eventually created our Earth.

Giant planets

The planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, as well as their moons, however, also contained other elements. Because the infant planets were spinning, they drew material from their surroundings, expanding in size. Numerous stones were crashing into our Earth and falling there. During the process, this material heated up and transformed into a sizable ball of molten rock.

Moon formation

In the meanwhile, a big incident took place. The Earth expanded after colliding with another massive body, but a portion of it also started to float in the outer reaches of space, eventually becoming the moon, our planet’s only naturally occurring satellite.

Although other scientists also reject this hypothesis, it is currently the most popular. Earth had a lot of volcanoes at that time.

Earth cooling

It took a while for the Earth to start cooling down. Earth’s seas and oceans started to form as a result of the ice melting, which was triggered by the entry of numerous ice boulders and gas. Long after the deep layers of molten rocks had cooled, the surface layer of the Earth continued to cool and solidify while the deep layers remained warm.

The environment on Earth improved for life after that. Animals and other living creatures evolved as a result of the earth’s atmosphere, ocean, trees, and vegetation. During this epoch, there were multiple extreme seasonal shifts and catastrophic occurrences that led to the development of numerous new species.

In the interim, dinosaurs appeared and died. Then, a few million years ago, people started to develop on Earth.

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Why Does the Moon orbit around the Earth?

The only naturally occurring, permanently positioned satellite of the Earth is the Moon, but how did it get there and why did it even start orbiting the earth in the first place?
What justifies the Moon’s orbit around the Earth, then? This is due to a phenomenon known as the Hill Sphere. The Earth’s gravity dominates and can defeat that of a much larger and farther away object in this region of space (The Sun). The Earth and Moon are subsequently dragged toward the Sun.
The Sun exerts nearly two times as much gravitational attraction on the Moon as does the Earth.

Every object in space, including planets, moons, and stars, has a region surrounding it where its gravity, despite its greater mass, is stronger than that of an object farther away.

What we have here is the Hill sphere. The position of three celestial bodies near one another’s Hill Spheres determines how they move when they interact through gravity.
The area where a body’s gravitational pull supersedes that of other (usually larger) nearby bodies is known as the Hill Sphere of that body.

It is affected by the semi-major axis, the eccentricity of the orbit, and the independent masses of the constituent parts.

The Hill sphere, which encircles the Earth, has a radius of around 1.5 million kilometers, which is more than enough to fit the moon’s orbit. If the Moon were any farther away or if both the Earth and Moon were any closer to the Sun, it wouldn’t orbit us here on Earth.

It is essential to keep in mind that Earth’s gravity predominates inside the Hill sphere while the Sun pushes Earth and the Moon together (almost as one entity together).

Although it orbits the Earth more closely, the moon orbits the Sun indirectly.

Here are some interesting facts about Moon orbiting around Sun

-The Moon’s whole orbit around the Earth takes around 27 days.
-The Moon rotates synchronously. This indicates that it always faces Earth with the same face.
-Both the Moon and Earth revolve about their axes in the opposite direction of how the Sun and Earth orbit each other.
-The Moon’s orbit around the Earth resembles a nearly round ellipse.
-The Moon is more impacted by Earth’s gravity than the Earth is by the Moon since it has a lower mass.
-The Moon has a significant impact on our ocean tides, which is one of its most significant effects on Earth.

What would happen if the Moon stops orbiting around the Earth?

Before I answer this question, you should be aware that this is probably never going to happen. No such event has any chance of happening unless a massive planet like Mars approaches the Earth-Moon system.

The moon’s interaction with the tides in its orbit around the earth has greatly slowed the Earth’s rotation over the past 4 billion years. This rotational energy has moved the moon into a higher orbit. The moon continues to move farther away from us each year, moving a few centimeters away.

The biggest impact if the Moon were to separate from Earth would be the absence of tides on Earth. Tides are caused by variations in the equatorial regions’ gravitational force, where the portion of Earth closest to the Moon is subjected to a stronger gravitational attraction than the region of Earth farthest from the Moon. Consequently, high and low tides form in diverse locations on Earth.

Beyond tidal pressures, the Moon has no other geological or climatic effects on Earth. There will be worries about things like the Moon no longer lighting up the night sky and the end of solar eclipses, but neither the geology nor temperature of the Earth will change.

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The Earth revolves around the sun and that’s the very core of our planet’s existence. We have been glued to this idea and fact ever since we were in school. We are all aware about the various natural phenomenon that happens concerning the earth’s rotation around the Sun. Along with that, we know that the Sun’s energy facilitates life on the earth. The Sun’s gravitational pull keep the earth and the other planets in the Solar System interlocked in their orbits. The Sun, which weighs at 333,000 times the mass of Earth exerts a heavy gravitational pull on the earth. 

Science classes in school introduced us to the concept of photosynthesis. This in turn taught us how plants make foods with the help of Sun’s energy. We also know that Sun stands at the initial point of the Food Chain. 

Thus, it isn’t surprising to question the after effects of a scenario in which the Sun disappears. 

You must know that it takes roughly 8 minutes for the Sun’s light to reach the earth. Therefore, if the sun disappears suddenly, the earth would still have its light for the next 8 minutes, until it fades out completely. Although, life on earth would not end right after that, it will still be the start of the aftermath. 

We would feel the sun’s gravitational pull disappear after 8 minutes, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, as gravity travels at the same speed of light. Once sunlight completely stops, photosynthesis would not take place and plants will die out. However, some large trees can survive decades without it and thus would exist for some more time. 

As time escalates, temperature on earth will subside down and humans would die soon after. Life on earth requires an average surface temperature of 15 degree Celsius to exist. It will take around 2 months for the ocean’s surface to freeze and around thousand years for the seas to turn completely solid. The atmosphere would collapse along with radiation seeping in and the earth would end up as a complete wasteland. The earth might hold some temperature from the last time it received the sun’s light, however that would not be enough for a long time survival. 

If the sun just stops emitting light and is still present in its place, the earth would still be in its orbit. In any other scenario, the earth would drift aimlessly in the space. Once the earth comes out of its orbit it would traverse aimlessly and may collide with other celestial bodies. This can cause complete destruction of the earth. The earth would move ahead in a linear path after losing its orbit. However, things will change if the earth reaches a new star system. Once it finds a new centre, it may start revolving around it’s nearly found orbit. 

If the sun only stops providing its light and other type of energies were still sent to the earth, chemolithotrophic life would still exist. In addition, humans can still grow plants with artificial light. The human civilization would have to adapt to living in the dark.  

The Sun’s disappearance would not only affect the earth, but the other planets in the Solar System as well. It would be a catastrophe in the vast universe. All the planets would be harmed in their own way and might end up being destructed. 

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