Hubble Space Telescope: The inner part of the solar system is unexpectedly bright

The inner part of the solar system is also much brighter than previously thought. A research group that analyzed 200,000 images from the Hubble Space Telescope found a kind of background glow a little higher than they expected. Thus, the specific increase corresponds to the brightness that ten fireflies would emit if they were evenly distributed across the night sky. As a possible explanation, they suggest that dust from comets is what causes the sunlight to be reflected. This dust bowl will be another element in the structure of our solar system.

What remains is an “eerie glow”

As the researchers explainThey performed tens of thousands of measurements on the images to remove any known light sources. It concerns not only other stars, planets and galaxies, but also the well-known so-called zodiacal light. This is caused by the reflection and scattering of sunlight from the cloud of dust and gas that surrounds the sun. However, after calculating, more light remained than expected. They explain that it’s like walking into a windowless room, turning out all the lights, and what’s left is a “strange glow” emanating from the walls, ceiling, and floor.

The discovery of the project, called “Skysurf”, is reminiscent of the New Horizons Pluto probe. It is now on its way to the edge of the solar system and several measurements with it have shown that the universe is clearly much brighter than expected. So far there have only been attempts to explain it. Both phenomena likely have different causes, says Tim Carlton of Arizona State University, who co-evaluated the Hubble data. The light left in the solar system’s interior is much brighter than the light measured by New Horizons. Therefore, one assumes that it is a local phenomenon. The Research work They were in science journals The Astronomical Journal And the Astrophysical Journal Letters released.

(mo)