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China Outer Space Science, Technology and Explorations: News & Updates

NEWS RELEASE 1-JUL-2020
FAST detects neutral hydrogen emission from extragalactic galaxies for the first time
CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

The optical color images of the four galaxies for FAST observation. The red contours are the previous CO observation by ALMA. The white spectra in each panel are the results from FAST. CREDIT: CASSACA

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) is the largest telescope with the highest sensitivity in the world. Extragalactic neutral hydrogen detection is one of important scientific goals of FAST.

Recently, an international research team led by Dr. CHENG Cheng from Chinese Academy of Sciences South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA) observed four extragalactic galaxies by using the FAST 19-beam receiver, and detected the neutral hydrogen line emission from three targets with only five minutes of exposure each. This is the first publication for FAST to detect extragalactic neutral hydrogen.

The research paper was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letter.

Neutral hydrogen gas is the most extended baryons in galaxies, while cold gas traced by CO is more concentrated to a galaxy center (red contour in Fig.1). "With dynamical measurements of neutral hydrogen and CO, we can estimate the mass distribution of galaxies at different radii," said Dr. CHENG, first author of the study.

Dynamical masses of these four galaxies estimated from the newly observed neutral hydrogen line were 10 times higher than the observed baryon masses, indicating contribution of dark matter.

On the other hand, dynamical masses estimated using previous CO observations were equivalent to their observed baryon masses. Therefore, the new FAST observation illustrated its ability of studying dark matter in galaxies using the neutral hydrogen 21cm emission line.

The FAST observation of these galaxies was an important part of an international research project, the Valparaíso ALMA Line Emission Survey (VALES), led by Prof. Edo Ibar from Valparaiso University in Chile.

The VALES is a project of observing star forming galaxies using first-class international facilities such as Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), Herschel Space Observatory, Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope (APEX) and Very Large Telescope (VLT).

FAST, with the unpreceded sensitivity, provides a unique chance to observe the extra-galactic neutral hydrogen, and therefore has been added to the list of modern astronomical facilities used by this international collaboration.


FAST detects neutral hydrogen emission from extragalactic galaxies for the first time | EurekAlert! Science News
 
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林晓弈
今天 14:56 来自 航天爱好者网超话 已编辑
我国新一代载人飞船内部CG图曝光,以后里面的座椅是可折叠的。
Today at 14:56 from the aerospace fan network super talk edited

The CG of the internal of the new generation manned spacecraft is revealed, and the seat inside is foldable..

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Alas this was too good to be true.

Eternal enemies of China unable to launch their own Mars probe this year, having totally collapsed under the COVID-19 outbreak, will have to postpone their EXOMARS mission to 2022!

And suddenly, coming out of the blue, the chief scientist of China's Mars exploration program, Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing), died yesterday aged 62, just two months before the launch of China's Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter and rover mission.

Two in a week, after the Chinese Ambassador to Israel, His Excellency Mr Du Wei, that has been found dead in his apartment north of Tel Aviv on 17th May 2020!

Coincidence? I think not! Norsemen squatters busy plotting against the rise of the Pax Sinica lately.


Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing) Has Passed Away on 20th May 2020

2020年05月21日 16:26 中国新闻网

China News Agency, Beijing, May 21 (Reporter Sun Zifa) The official microblog of the Chinese Academy of Sciences "Voice of the Chinese Academy of Sciences" issued an obituary on the 21st, saying that members of the 14th Central Committee of the Jiu San Society, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and researcher of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing), died in Beijing on the evening of May 20, 2020 at the age of 62.

According to information from the Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the space physicist Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing) was born in Tianmen, Hubei in July 1958. He graduated from the Space Physics Department of Wuhan University in 1982 and received a Ph.D. from the Wuhan Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1989. He was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011, a researcher of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the director of the academic committee of the Institute.

Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing) is mainly engaged in research in the fields of ionosphere physics, ionospheric radio wave propagation, upper atmospheric physics, etc., and has made important breakthroughs and series of achievements in the research of major scientific issues such as the coupling between the ionosphere and the atmosphere.

According to the official website of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing) is the director of the Institute of Geomagnetism and Space Physics. He has undertaken and completed more than 20 major national key research projects and national defense engineering projects, High-frequency diagnosis of ionospheric disturbances, characteristics of ionospheric disturbance regions, ionospheric-atmospheric coupling, multi-scale ionospheric process correlation, ionospheric climatology and modeling studies, electromagnetic wave propagation correction in space engineering, etc. with important results.

The Proceedings of the Chinese Academy of Sciences published in July 2019 the subject article "From a Deep Space Exploration Power to a Planetary Science Power", led by Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing), pointed out that speeding up the construction of a planetary science first-level discipline and comprehensively improving China's deep space exploration capabilities and planets. The international influence of science will definitely accelerate China's move from a deep space exploration power to a planetary science power.

The article's author shows that Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing) is the chief scientist of China's first Mars exploration program, director of the Planetary Physics Committee of the Chinese Geophysical Society, director of the Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and leader of the Department of Planetary Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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http://archive.is/qcA2u/839616945ce49e0a60be73b9b490438753b3e0a3.jpg ; https://archive.is/qcA2u/1ef143a85dcbfdbf55fc86240675bdffac01d01e/scr.png ; http://web.archive.org/web/20200521...0200521/f02791b403474aa18eaeecbd8046053c.jpeg ; https://www.sohu.com/a/396683999_260616
3. Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing) has passed away.

http://web.archive.org/web/20200521...m.cn/d/s/2020-05-21/doc-iirczymk2819268.shtml
http://archive.vn/d7RL9



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This Tianwen-1 mission will allow China to achieve another world first.

With the first human to be buried on Mars. That is part of the bone ashes of late Academician Ten Thousands Satellites (万卫星: Wan Weixing) who has passed away on 20th May 2020, and the chief scientist of China's first Mars exploration program.

What a swift service delivery! Made in China.

To date only the U.S. has a scientist, Eugene Shoemaker, buried on our satellite the Moon.

He is the only man to be buried there.

To date, nobody was ever buried on other planets.

With Tianwen-1 Mars probe, this is the symbolical burial of the Pax Americana.

This marks be the beginning of a new era, obviously the rise of the Pax Sinica superseding the Pax Americana.

https://twitter.com/NamusLake/status/1280179159025803267

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Russian space chief questions NASA plans, praises partnership with China
"Today relations between Russia and China are very good."

ERIC BERGER - 7/14/2020, 3:20 AM

The chief of Russia's space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, offered less-than-flattering comments about NASA's Moon program in a recent interview with a Russian tabloid newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Asked about Russia's interest in sending humans to the Moon and possibly partnering with NASA, Rogozin dismissed the Artemis program. He responded: "Frankly speaking, we are not interested in participating in such a project."


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Russian space chief questions NASA plans, praises partnership with China | Ars Technica
 
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Russian space chief questions NASA plans, praises partnership with China
"Today relations between Russia and China are very good."

ERIC BERGER - 7/14/2020, 3:20 AM

The chief of Russia's space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, offered less-than-flattering comments about NASA's Moon program in a recent interview with a Russian tabloid newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Asked about Russia's interest in sending humans to the Moon and possibly partnering with NASA, Rogozin dismissed the Artemis program. He responded: "Frankly speaking, we are not interested in participating in such a project."


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Russian space chief questions NASA plans, praises partnership with China | Ars Technica

So Russia say NO to Artemis program, and instead want to Cooperate with China in manned moon program.

What an interesting time ahead :D
 
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China's liquid rocket engine completes key restart function test
Source:Global Times Published: 2020/5/28 13:55:03

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photo: courtesy of i-Space

China's 15-ton reusable liquid oxygen-methane engine JD-1 completed a key secondary start test on Wednesday.

The completion of the test makes JD-1 the first engine of its kind to achieve a restart function and marks a key breakthrough in vertical landing rocket technology, according to a reply sent by the Beijing-based engine developer i-Space to the Global Times on Thursday.

The vertical landing technology has high technical requirements for the rocket's power system. A core technology allows for the second start of the engine, the engine's ability to start and work normally in high altitude after its first normal shutdown.

"The reusable rocket has a high demand on its engine, which has to kick off twice during the take-off and landing processes. The test is of huge significance to the development of reusable rockets," Xing Qiang, an expert at Small Rocket Studio, told the Global Times on Thursday.

"It is likely China will be the second country to acquire reusable launch technology after the US," he said.

The engine is powered with liquid oxygen-methane, a low-cost and clean fuel, and is designed to be used up to 30 times, which can save more than 70 percent in rocket manufacturing costs, according to the developer.

The engine will be assembled onboard the reusable liquid oxygen-methane carrier rocket Hyperbola-2, said a power system engineer with i-Space, noting that the test laid a solid foundation for the launch of the rocket.

The rocket, with a take-off weight of 90 tons, is capable of sending 1.9-ton payloads into low-Earth orbit and is expected to be launched for the first time in 2021.

The next technological breakthrough will be in precise guidance and control technology, and the selection and planning of landing sites, Xing said.

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Seems private companies are usually more efficient than state owned ones and they can really achieve alot with the right state support just like we saw with space X who has achieved so much in such a short time compared to even NASA
 
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Tianwen 1 probe to soon blast off for Mars
By ZHAO LEI | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2020-07-15 07:47

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Picture released on Aug 23, 2016 by the lunar probe and space project center of Chinese State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence shows the concept portraying what the Mars rover and lander would look like. [Photo/Xinhua]

Tianwen 1, a Chinese Mars probe, has been transported to Hainan province, where it is set to be launched atop a Long March 5 carrier rocket in the coming days, according to the China Academy of Space Technology.

The academy said in a statement on Tuesday that the spacecraft is now undergoing prelaunch preparations at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Wenchang before setting out on China's first independent Mars exploration without elaborating.

According to the academy's parent, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, a State-owned space conglomerate, the mission of Tianwen 1, or Quest for Heavenly Truth 1, will fulfill three scientific objectives-orbiting the red planet for comprehensive observation, landing on Martian soil and sending a rover to roam the landing site. It will conduct scientific investigations into the planet's soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere and water.

If Tianwen 1 succeeds, it will become the first Mars expedition accomplishing all three goals with one probe, the company said.

Tianwen is a long poem by a famous ancient poet, Qu Yuan of the Kingdom of Chu during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). He is known for his patriotism and contributions to classical poetry and verses, especially through the poems of the Chu Ci anthology, also known as Songs of Chu.

In the mission's first step, a Long March 5, the nation's biggest and most powerful rocket, will blast off at the Wenchang center to transport the robotic probe to the Earth-Mars transfer trajectory before the spacecraft begins its self-propelled flight toward Mars' gravity field.

The probe will travel about seven months before it reaches Mars, which at the farthest point of its orbit is about 400 million kilometers from Earth and 55 million km at the nearest point.

The space contractor said the probe consists of three parts-the orbiter, the lander and the rover-and they will separate in Mars orbit. The orbiter will remain in the orbit for scientific operations and to relay signals while the lander-rover combination makes an autonomous descent and landing.

The rover, which is expected to become the world's seventh of its kind and the first from Asia, has six wheels and four solar panels and carries six scientific instruments. It weighs over 200 kilograms and will work for about three months on the planet, designers said.

In a second step for China's Mars exploration program, a larger probe will set off for Mars around 2030 to take samples and then return to Earth, space officials have said.
 
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Long March-5 rocket in position for China's first Mars probe
By Deng Xiaoci Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/17 10:12:20

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Photo: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation

China has taken another major step toward its first Mars probe mission, Tianwen-1. The Long March-5 Y4, the carrier rocket commissioned for the probe, was vertically transported to the launch area at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in South China's Hainan Province on Friday morning ahead of the launch scheduled to take place between the end of July and the beginning of August, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA.)

According to a CNSA press release the Global Times attained on Friday, the Long March-5 Y4 rocket arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in late May this year, and has completed preparation work including assembly and pre-launch tests.

On Friday Morning, the carrier rocket was transferred to the launch area after a smooth roll-out from the assembly building, which took around two hours, the CNSA said.

Propellant will be injected into the rocket after further functional checks and final inspections. And then the rocket will be launched according to schedule.

The minimum distance between Mars and Earth is about 55 million kilometers, and the two planets only come that close every 26 months, state-owned space giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the mission's contractor, told the Global Times in June. The Mars exploration window is open between July and August.

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Infographic: GT

The final launch date of China's Mars probe mission will be determined by environmental factors including weather conditions, the distance between Earth to Mars and the launch center's overall condition, as well as a small but more decisive factor, the technical readiness inspection before launch, Wang Ya'nan, chief editor of the Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Friday.

There must be no rainfall, with a ground wind speed of below 8 meters per second and horizontal visibility above 20 kilometers, Beijing-based space expert Pang Zhihao told the Global Times.

Moreover, from eight hours before launch until one hour after launch, 30 to 40 kilometers of surrounding areas should have no thunder activity, and wind speeds should be weaker than 70 meters per second in skies 3 to 18 kilometers above the launch area, Pang said, noting that winds at 8 to 15 kilometers above ground would affect the rocket's flight form.

A wind speed difference in the lower and upper air could twist the rocket's body, leading to failure, he said.

The UAE's mission to Mars has been rescheduled for launch between July 20 and 22, the UAE government announced on Thursday.

The launch of Japan's Hope probe was postponed twice this week due to unstable weather at its launch site on Japan's Tanegashima island.

"Weather conditions in Hainan are in general better than those in Japan. That was one of the factors China took into consideration when deciding to construct the launch center in the southern island of Hainan," Wang said.

The mission will mark the first application launch of the Long March-5, currently the strongest member of the Chinese carrier rocket family. It will be China's first rocket launch into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit.

The Tianwen-1 Mars probe mission was approved by Chinese authorities on January 2016, and aims to achieve orbiting, landing and roving on the Red Planet in a single mission.

The upcoming launch will be the fourth flight of the Long March-5, following the successful comeback of the state-of-the-art rocket at the end of 2019, more than two years after a July 2017 launch failure on the rocket's second test flight due to engine problems.

Earlier on Tuesday, media reported that spacecraft developer, the China Academy of Space Technology, had revealed the Mars probe which had arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Center.

Space experts expressed confidence in the success of China's Mars mission as the country has amassed rich experience from previous lunar probe missions, with the Chang'e-4 landing on the far side of the moon being the major highlight.

"The relay communication technology applied in the Chang'e-4 mission will be particularly valuable for the Mars mission, overcoming the distance challenge for interplanetary spacecraft communication," Wang said.

 
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China upgrades deep space monitoring network for Mars mission
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-17 19:26:07|Editor: huaxia

XI'AN, July 17 (Xinhua) -- China's Xi'an Satellite Control Center announced on Friday it has built a super-strong deep space monitoring network to support the country's first Mars exploration.

As scheduled, China plans to launch its Mars probe Tianwen-1 between late July and early August. Once the probe was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, the control center's two monitoring stations, in Kashgar of northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Jiamusi, in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, will provide monitoring support for it.

Experts at the center said the spaceflight control would be challenging as the probe would take nearly seven months to land on the red planet, which at the farthest point of its orbit is about 400 million km from Earth.

Efforts have been made to upgrade equipment at the two stations. Test results showed that they could meet the demands of spacecraft control on Mars, according to the center.

The two stations completed control tasks for China's lunar probes including Chang'e-2, Chang'e-3, Chang'e-4 and the test model of Chang'e-5.

The Jiamusi station is equipped with a large-caliber antenna, and with a diameter of 66 meters, it is the largest in Asia. In addition, China's first deep-space antenna array system, consisting of four 35-meter-diameter antennas, will be put into use in the Kashgar station by the end of this year, said the control center.

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Lessons From History: Through the Comet’s tail

About 3 a.m. GMT on 1910 May 19, Halley’s Comet passed directly between the Sun and Earth. This event was invisible from Greenwich, the Sun being below the horizon at the time, but observers on the other side of the world, in Hawaii, trained their telescopes on the Sun for signs of the Comet’s head silhouetted against its brilliant disk. They saw nothing. Had there been a solid nucleus as little as 100 kilometres across, the astronomers would have seen it as a dark dot crossing the Sun.

Those who believed that the Earth’s passage through the Comet’s tail would mark the end of the world must have feared the worst when violent thunderstorms broke out over England that night. From Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, an imaginative witness described the lightning as being as ‘almost the colour of blood’. At the Paris Observatory, Camille Flammarion reported that four observers ‘had certain olfactory experiences, which are described variously as a smell of burning vegetables, or a marsh, or of acetylene’. Imagination must have got the better of them, for the Earth’s atmosphere would have prevented the rarefied gases of the comet from penetrating any closer than about 100 kilometres from the ground.

From Greenwich on the night of the Earth’s passage through the tail, Crommelin noticed strange bands of light in the sky. At first he put them down to clouds but later he wondered whether they were anything to do with the comet. The Engineer-in-Chief of the General Post Office wrote to the Astronomer Royal to inform him that no electrical effects were noted on telephone trunk lines during the Earth’s passage through the tail. With hindsight, it now seems that the Earth did not pass through the centre of the tail, but only through its outskirts.

Perhaps the strangest letter about the encounter to be received at Greenwich came from Sze zuk Chang Chin-liang, who wrote from the Imperial Polytechnic College, Shanghai. He thoughtfully enclosed a photograph of himself to accompany his revolutionary theory: ‘It is obvious the comet has no tail at all and the so-called tail must be the Sun rays which, while passing through the body of the comet, look like a tail’. He then confessed his fear: ‘If the body of the comet is transparent and like the Earth has its two poles fairly flat and thus form a convex lens then everything on the Earth will be burnt provided the sunlight passes through the body of the comet and the focus falls on the surface of the Earth’.

http://web.archive.org/web/20200719135345/http://www.ianridpath.com/halley/halley12.htm
http://archive.vn/IOHdQ



[Gallery] This paradise is called Iran

11 July 2020

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1. Taken by mohammadhossein.sharifzadeh on July 8, 2020 @ SehQale,SouthKhorasan,Iran

May these most auspicious celestial gems turn into a godly space Kamikaze typhoon (Japanese: 神風, literally 'Divine Wind') or super orbital Intifada Stone Revolution and hasten the rise of the Axis Of Resistance!
:flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame:

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/gallery-this-paradise-is-called-iran.183765/page-123#post-12522972

THE SYNCHRONIC BANDS OF COMET NEOWISE

Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is doing something usually reserved for Great Comets. It has sprouted synchronic bands. Also known as "striae," these bands divide the comet's dust tail into linear regions of greater and lesser density.

Jeff Dai in Ankang, Shanxi Province, China, captured the phenomenon on the evening of July 17th 2020:

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http://archive.is/Kr0ok/d7872f6c2d839cd13f01f1cc6ff23a429801ea64.jpg ; https://archive.is/Kr0ok/fcb589d97f40ce4c07a4414dbea0af14da6233c9/scr.png ; http://web.archive.org/web/20200719...EOWISE-meet-Satellite-flash_1595085267_lg.jpg ; http://archive.vn/b0pyl/84280737a8c1a4229b649c499493ba9324a50777.jpg ; https://archive.vn/b0pyl/892e32c34d7b55b244ee7bc5e721f9ee5630775c/scr.png ; http://web.archive.org/web/20200719...t-NEOWISE-meet-Satellite-flash_1595085267.jpg ; http://web.archive.org/web/20200719...gallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=166085 ; http://archive.vn/Cv9HF
2. Taken by jeff Dai on July 17, 2020 @ Ankang, Shanxi, China

Details:
Camera Used: Canon Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Exposure Time: 30/1
Aperture: f/1.6
ISO: 800
Date Taken: 2020:07:18 20:42:45​

Comet NEOWISE meet Satellite ! This is an image i captured at last night during the way back to my home from Shanxi to Sichuan province. It's not easy to witness the clear skies, as it's always rainy and flood in south of China. The magnitude of the comet have already go down, but the tail is still visible, around 5-7 degree. But for the photography side, it's more friendly for us, as its appear at the sunset, and the sky is getting dark when the comet go down. For this photo, it's taken by a 85mm lens. I' am very luck to capture the comet and satellite flash (not meteor) together. Wish you enjoy the view.


"Comet NEOWISE is now in its full glory for northern hemisphere observers". "This image is a stack of thirty 1s exposures at ISO800. It clearly shows the formation of synchronic bands within the dust tail."

Synchronic bands have been seen in comet tails for centuries, yet only recently have astronomers begun to understand what they are. The turning point came in 2007 when European and NASA spacecraft observed the formation of striae in Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1). Apparently, the process starts when a chunk of comet detaches itself from the nucleus. Boulder-sized chunks fragment into smaller and smaller pieces, a cascading process shaped into dusty striations by solar radiation pressure.

The disruptions occured when Comet McNaught crossed the heliospheric current sheet (HCS)--a vast wavy structure in interplanetary space separating regions of opposite magnetic polarity. "It appears the dust may be electrically charged, and gets rearranged as it crosses the HCS boundary,"

Could the same thing happen to Comet NEOWISE? It's possible. Photographers monitoring NEOWISE are encouraged to keep a sharp eye on the striae. Changes may be in the offing.

http://web.archive.org/web/20200719...gallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=166085
http://archive.vn/Cv9HF

:flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame::flame:

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