Earth has three moons!
2018-11-09
After more than half a century
of speculation, it has now been confirmed that Earth has two dust ‘moons’
orbiting it which are nine times wider than our planet.
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The new moons exist at a distance of
approximately 250,000 miles — more or less the same distance as our moon.
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The dust ‘moons’ are huge but they are made of
tiny dust particles that barely measure one micrometre across.
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Since these satellite dust clouds emit an
extremely faint light, they are very difficult to find amidst the star light,
sky glow, galactic light and zodiacal light in the sky though they are as close
to us as the moon.
The presence of the dust
‘moons’ or Kordylewski clouds had been inferred by researchers since long
before. But the first glimpse of the clouds was seen only in 1961 by Polish
astronomer Kazimierz Kordylewski, after whom the dust clouds were named.
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