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Boston Globe
7 days ago
- Science
- Boston Globe
It turns out weather on other planets is a lot like on Earth
Related : Advertisement But by leveraging the sheer amount of knowledge and data about our planet, scientists can get a head start on understanding the inner workings of storms or vortexes on other planetary bodies. In some cases, the models provide almost everything we know about some otherworldly atmospheric processes. 'Our planetary atmosphere models are derived almost exclusively from these Earth models,' said Scot Rafkin, a planetary meteorologist at the Southwest Research Institute. 'Studying the weather on other planets helps us with Earth and vice versa.' Satellite photo of the Baltic Sea surrounding Gotland, Sweden, with algae bloom swirling in the water. The churning clouds near Jupiter's pole appear like ocean currents on Earth — as if you're looking at small edges and meandering fronts in the Baltic Sea. European Space Agency Vortexes on Jupiter If you looked at the churning clouds near Jupiter's pole, they appear like ocean currents on Earth - as if you're looking at small edges and meandering fronts in the Baltic Sea. 'This looks so much like turbulence I'm seeing in our own ocean. They must be covered by at least some similar dynamics,' Lia Siegelman, a physical oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, recalled the first time she saw images of vortexes from NASA's Juno mission, which entered Jupiter's orbit in 2016. Advertisement Working with planetary scientists, she applied her understanding of the ocean physics on Earth to the gas giant in computer models. Whether it's in air or water on any planet, she found the laws of physics that govern turbulent fluids is the same (even though the vortex on Jupiter is about 10 times larger than one on Earth). When cyclones and anticyclones (which spin in the opposite direction) interact in the ocean, they create a boundary of different water masses and characteristics - known as a front. She and her colleagues found the same phenomenon occurs in cyclones at Jupiter's poles, showing similar swirls. 'By studying convection on Earth, we were also able to spot that phenomenon occurring on Jupiter,' Siegelman said, even though Jupiter has relatively little data compared to Earth. Related : She and her colleagues also found a pattern never seen on Earth before: a cluster of cyclones in a symmetrical, repeating pattern near the poles of Jupiter. These 'polar vortex crystals' were observed in 2016 and have remained in place since. Despite never seeing them on Earth, she and other planetary scientists collaborated to reproduce these swirls in computer models - relying on 'just very simple physics.' 'Planetary scientists use a lot of the weather models that have been developed to study either the ocean or the atmosphere,' Siegelman said. 'By just knowing so much about the ocean and the atmosphere, we can just guide our analysis.' Advertisement This NASA handout photo shows beds of sandstone inclined to the southwest toward Mount Sharp and away from the Gale Crater rim on Mars. HANDOUT Dust storms on Mars If you plan to move to Mars, be prepared to face the dust storms. At their most intense, they can engulf the entire planet and last from days to months. The dirt can block sunlight and coat infrastructure. While scientists have observed many of these storms, they still don't know how to predict them. Dust storms operate similarly on Earth and Mars. Dust is lifted and heated, and rises like a hot-air balloon, Rafkin said. The rising air will suck in air from below to replace it. Air pressure drops near the surface, sucking in more wind that lifts the dust. As Mars spins, the angular momentum causes the dust storm to rotate. In reality, Martian dust storms are more similar to hurricanes on Earth in terms of their scale and circulation, said planetary scientist Claire Newman. She said the sources are different (Mars is a dust planet, whereas Earth is a water planet), but they have a similar effect on temperature and winds. But it's still unknown how these Martian dust storms form. On Earth, a winter storm with a cold front can lift the dust; scientists sometimes see similar dust lifting along cold fronts on Mars, but many storms just seem to pop up. Related : To predict a dust storm, scientists need to understand the circulation patterns on Mars - forecasting the cold front that can lift the dust, for instance. But it's something researchers don't yet understand. Wind measurements are scarce on Mars, aside from a few scattered measurement sites on its surface. With adjustments, Earth-based models can simulate the conditions that can lead to the uplifting winds and dust storms. 'Almost everything that we know about the circulation patterns on Mars come from models,' said Rafkin, adding that scientists 'have effectively no observations of the movement of the air on Mars.' Advertisement In this photo, sand blowing off fields creates a dust storm near Morton, Texas, in May 2021. Dust storms operate similarly on Earth and Mars. Jude Smith/Associated Press The models currently serve as the best way to understand dust storms on the Red Planet, unless more dedicated studies and stations are added, similar to Earth. 'We're basically applying these models to try and get a sense of what the environment is,' said Newman, 'before we send robots or potentially people there.' Rain on Titan The second-largest moon in our solar system, Titan is the only other known world besides Earth that has standing bodies of rivers, lakes and seas on its surface - consisting of liquid methane instead of water. That's partly why some scientists think it could be a future home for Earthlings, if we can just figure out the 750-million-mile journey and learn how to survive the minus-179 degree Celsius surface temperatures. But how did those lakes and oceans fill up? Even though it rains methane, the precipitation on Titan is very similar to that on Earth, Rafkin said. On Earth, take a chunk of air with water vapor, cool it off and the air becomes saturated to form a cloud. Those small cloud droplets can bump into one another or take in more water vapor to grow bigger. But eventually, the water vapor starts to condense into a liquid and brings rain. We've seen this process take place on Earth both naturally in the atmosphere and in labs enough times to understand the physics. But limited observations on Titan - effectively only visiting its atmosphere a handful of times - have caused scientists to turn to models. Using the same underlying physics, scientists can model the cloud-making process on this foreign body. And, the modeled clouds look a lot like the few they have observed in real life on Titan. Advertisement This November 2015 composite image made available by NASA shows an infrared view of Saturn's moon, Titan, as seen by the Cassini spacecraft. Titan is the only other known world besides Earth that has standing bodies of rivers, lakes and seas on its surface. AP 'If we try to model them and we get clouds, but they look totally bizarre and different than what we're observing, then that's an indication that maybe we're not representing the cloud processes correctly,' Rafkin said. 'But as it turns out, for the most part, when we model these things, we can produce clouds that look reasonably close to what we've observed.' Because of its incredibly dense atmosphere, Titan has storm clouds - two to four times taller than those on Earth - that are able to produce feet of methane rain. While scientists haven't observed such huge volumes, they have modeled the deluges based on the surface darkening as a storm passed - similar to how rain on soil or pavement darkens the surface on Earth. It's still a mystery where the methane comes from. But at least we know to bring a very, very sturdy raincoat if we ever visit Titan.
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Jaw-Dropping Explosions on The Sun Captured in First NASA PUNCH Images
A NASA mission to observe the activity of the solar wind has returned its first images of giant coronal mass ejections (CMEs) billowing out from the Sun. Images from the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) were presented at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, showing these giant events on an unprecedented scale. "I promise you you have never seen anything quite like this," heliophysicist and PUNCH principal investigator Craig DeForest of the Southwest Research Institute said in his presentation. CMEs are huge expulsions of billions of tons of solar plasma and magnetic fields that are blasted out from the Sun, a massive release of energy and solar particles that occurs when the Sun's magnetic field lines tangle, snap, and reconnect. They often, but don't always, occur with solar flares. A halo CME is what we call it when the CME blasts right in the direction of Earth. From our perspective, the expanding ejecta looks to surround the Sun like a halo, before barreling through the Solar System at tremendous speed. "That halo CME is something you have never seen before. I'd like to call your attention to the white circle near the center of the field of view here. That circle represents the LASCO field of view; that is the largest coronagraph currently used to forecast space weather. "You've seen halo CME movies before, if you've paid attention to the science press. But you have never seen one 30 to 40 degrees from the Sun … you're seeing something that is literally washing across the entire sky of the inner Solar System as it comes toward the Earth." In this case, they were able to track a CME as it blasted through the Solar System at 4 million miles an hour until about two hours before it collided with Earth's magnetic field. These events often produce the aurora that light up Earth's polar skies, but can also interrupt communications and damage satellites, so scientists are keen to develop better space weather tracking and prediction tools. PUNCH is just beginning its planned two-year mission to record solar events in 3D, in an attempt to better understand space weather. The four probes aren't quite yet in their final positions, but the team here on Earth is testing the instruments and taking observations. "These are preliminary data. They look good now, but they are going to look fabulous once we are done with calibration later this summer," DeForest said. "This is the first of many, I'm sure, and the best is still to come." SpaceX Starship Explodes in Towering Fireball Astronomers Uncover a Massive Shaft of Missing Matter Our Galaxy's Monster Black Hole Is Spinning Almost as Fast as Physics Allows
WIRED
15-06-2025
- Science
- WIRED
The Mysterious Inner Workings of Io, Jupiter's Volcanic Moon
Jun 15, 2025 7:00 AM Recent flybys of the fiery world refute a leading theory of its inner structure—and reveal how little is understood about geologically active moons. Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Scott Bolton's first encounter with Io took place in the summer of 1980, right after he graduated from college and started a job at NASA. The Voyager 1 spacecraft had flown past this moon of Jupiter, catching the first glimpse of active volcanism on a world other than Earth. Umbrella-shaped outbursts of magmatic matter rocketed into space from all over Io's surface. 'They looked amazingly beautiful,' said Bolton, who is now based at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas. 'It was like an artist drew it. I was amazed at how exotic it looked compared to our moon.' Scientists like Bolton have been trying to understand Io's exuberant volcanism ever since. A leading theory has been that just below the moon's crust hides a global magma ocean, a vast contiguous cache of liquid rock. This theory dovetails neatly with several observations, including ones showing a roughly uniform distribution of Io's volcanoes, which seem to be tapping the same omnipresent, hellish source of melt. But now, it appears that Io's hell has vanished—or rather, it was never there to begin with. During recent flybys of the volcanic moon by NASA's Juno spacecraft, scientists measured Io's gravitational effect on Juno, using the spacecraft's tiniest wobbles to determine the moon's mass distribution and therefore its internal structure. The scientists reported in Nature that nothing significant is sloshing about just beneath Io's crust. 'There is no shallow ocean,' said Bolton, who leads the Juno mission. Independent scientists can find no fault with the study. 'The results and the work are totally solid and pretty convincing,' said Katherine de Kleer, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology. The data has reopened a mystery that spills over into other rocky worlds. Io's volcanism is powered by a gravity-driven mechanism called tidal heating, which melts the rock into magma that erupts from the surface. Whereas Io is the poster child for this mechanism, tidal heating also heats many other worlds, including Io's neighbor, the icy moon Europa, where the heat is thought to sustain a subterranean saltwater ocean. NASA launched the $5 billion Clipper spacecraft to search Europa's sky for signs of life in the proposed underground ocean. A map of Io's surface, created with images from the Voyager 1 and Galileo missions, shows the wide distribution of the moon's volcanoes. The large red ring is sulfurous fallout from the plume of the Pele volcano. Photograph: US Geological Survey But if Io doesn't have a magma ocean, what might that mean for Europa? And, scientists now wonder, how does tidal heating even work? Melting Magma Heat drives geology, the rocky foundation upon which everything else, from volcanic activity and atmospheric chemistry to biology, is built. Heat often comes from a planet's formation and the decay of its radioactive elements. But smaller celestial objects like moons have only tiny reserves of such elements and of residual heat, and when those reserves run dry, their geological activity flatlines. Or, at least, it should—but something appears to grant geologic life to small orbs throughout the solar system long after they should have geologically perished. Io is the most flamboyant member of this puzzling club—a burnt-orange, crimson, and tawny Jackson Pollock painting. The discovery of its over-spilling cauldrons of lava is one of the most famous tales in planetary science, as they were predicted to exist before they were discovered. NASA's Voyager 1 probe photographed Io in 1979, revealing the first glimpse of volcanism beyond Earth. In this photo mosaic, a lava plume is seen emanating from Loki Patera, now known to be the moon's largest volcano. Photograph: NASA/JPL/USGS On March 2, 1979, a paper in Science ruminated on Io's strange orbit. Because of the positions and orbits of neighboring moons, Io's orbit is elliptical rather than circular. And when Io is closer to Jupiter, it experiences a stronger gravitational pull from the gas giant than when it is farther away. The study authors figured that Jupiter's gravity must therefore be constantly kneading Io, pulling its surface up and down by up to 100 meters, and, per their calculations, generating a lot of frictional heat within it—a mechanism they described as 'tidal heating.' They conjectured that Io may be the most intensely heated rocky body in the solar system. 'One might speculate that widespread and recurrent surface volcanism would occur,' they wrote. Just three days later, Voyager 1 flew by. An image taken on March 8 documented two gigantic plumes arching above its surface. After ruling out all other causes, NASA scientists concluded that Voyager had seen an alien world's volcanic eruptions. They reported their discovery in Science that June, just three months after the prediction. The planetary science community quickly coalesced around the idea that tidal heating within Io is responsible for the never-ending volcanism on the surface. 'The unknown part that's been an open question of decades is what that means for the interior structure,' said Mike Sori, a planetary geophysicist at Purdue University. Where is that tidal heating focused within Io, and just how much heat and melting is it generating? Courtest of Mark Belan/Quanta Magazine NASA's Galileo spacecraft studied Jupiter and several of its moons around the turn of the millennium. One of its instruments was a magnetometer, and it picked up a peculiar magnetic field emanating from Io. The signal appeared to be coming from an electrically conductive fluid—a lot of fluid, in fact. After years of study, scientists concluded in 2011 that Galileo had detected a global magma ocean just below Io's crust. Whereas Earth's mantle is mostly solid and plasticky, Io's subsurface was thought to be filled with an ocean of liquid rock 50 kilometers thick, or almost five times thicker than the Pacific Ocean at its deepest point. A similar magnetic field was coming from Europa, too—in this case, apparently generated by a vast ocean of salty water. The implications were profound: With a lot of rocky material, tidal heating can make oceans of magma. With plenty of ice, it can create oceans of potentially habitable liquid water. Volcanic Vanishing Act By the time the Juno spacecraft started swinging around Jupiter in 2016, the belief that Io had a magma ocean was widespread. But Bolton and his colleagues wanted to double-check. A sequence of images taken over the course of eight minutes by NASA's New Horizons probe in 2007 shows an eruption by the Tvashtar Paterae volcanic region. The plume in this false-color image rises 330 kilometers from the moon's surface. Video: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute During flybys in December 2023 and February 2024, Juno came within 1,500 kilometers of Io's scorched surface. Although the remarkable images of active volcanoes drew everyone's attention, the goal of these flybys was to find out if a magma ocean truly lay beneath the moon's rocky skin. To investigate, the team used an unlikely tool: Juno's radio transponder, which communicates with Earth, sending and receiving signals. Because of Io's unevenly distributed mass, its gravitational field isn't perfectly symmetrical. That uneven gravitational field subtly alters the motion of Juno as it flies by, causing it to accelerate or decelerate a little. That means Juno's radio transmissions will experience the Doppler effect, where the wavelength shifts slightly in response to Io's uneven gravitational field. By looking at the incredibly small shifts in the transmissions, Bolton's team was able to create a high-fidelity picture of Io's gravitational field and use that to determine its internal structure. 'If there were indeed a global magma ocean, you'd see a lot more distortion as Io orbited around Jupiter and as the tidal forces flexed it and changed its shape,' said Ashley Davies, a volcanologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who wasn't involved with the new study. But Bolton's team did not find this level of distortion. Their conclusion was clear. 'There cannot be a shallow magma ocean fueling the volcanoes,' said study coauthor Ryan Park, a Juno co-investigator at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Cassini-Huygens mission photographed Io against the backdrop of Jupiter in 2001. Photograph: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona So what else might be powering Io's volcanoes? On Earth, discrete reservoirs of magma of different types—from the tarlike viscous matter that powers explosive eruptions to the runnier, honey-esque stuff that gushes out of some volcanoes—are located within the crust at various depths, all created by the interactions of tectonic plates, the moving jigsaw pieces that make up Earth's surface. Io lacks plate tectonics and (perhaps) a diversity of magma types, but its crust may nevertheless be peppered with magma reservoirs. This was one of the original lines of thought until Galileo's data convinced many of the magma ocean theory. The new study doesn't rule out a far deeper magma ocean. But that abyssal cache would have to be filled with magma so iron-rich and dense (because of its great depth) that it would struggle to migrate to the surface and power Io's volcanism. 'And at some depth, it becomes tricky to distinguish between what we would call a deep magma ocean versus a liquid core,' Park said. For some, this raises an irreconcilable problem. Galileo's magnetometer detected signs of a shallow magma ocean, but Juno gravity data has emphatically ruled that out. 'People are not really disputing the magnetometer results, so you have to make that fit with everything else,' said Jani Radebaugh, a planetary geologist at Brigham Young University. Researchers disagree on the best interpretation of the Galileo data. The magnetic signals 'were taken as probably the best evidence for a magma ocean, but really they weren't that strong,' said Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a coauthor of the new study. The induction data couldn't distinguish between a partly molten (but still solid) interior and a fully molten magma ocean, he said. Heavy Water Perhaps the main reason scientists study Io is because it teaches us about the fundamentals of tidal heating. Io's tidal heating engine remains impressive—there's clearly a lot of volcano-feeding magma being generated. But if it's not producing a subsurface magma ocean, does that mean tidal heating doesn't generate water oceans, either? Scientists remain confident that it does. Nobody doubts that Saturn's moon Enceladus, which is also tidally heated, contains an underground saltwater ocean; the Cassini spacecraft not only detected signs of its existence but directly sampled some of it erupting out of the moon's South Pole. And although there is some light skepticism about whether Europa has an ocean, most scientists think it does. The smooth, lightly scratched surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, photographed by the Juno spacecraft in 2022, shows no sign of what lies beneath: in all likelihood, a vast saltwater ocean. Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Crucially, unlike Io's odd magnetic field, which seemed to indicate that it concealed an ocean's worth of fluid, Europa's own Galileo-era magnetic signal remains robust. 'It's a pretty clean result at Europa,' said Robert Pappalardo, the Europa mission's project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The icy moon is far enough from Jupiter and the intense plasma-flooded space environment of Io that Europa's own magnetic induction signal 'really sticks out.' But if both moons are tidally heated, why does only Europa have an inner ocean? According to Nimmo, 'there's a fundamental difference between a liquid-water ocean and a magma ocean. The magma wants to escape; the water really doesn't.' Liquid rock is less dense than solid rock, so it wants to rise and erupt quickly; the new study suggests that it doesn't linger at depth long enough inside Io to form a massive, interconnected ocean. But liquid water is, unusually, denser than its solid icy form. 'Liquid water is heavy, so it collects into an ocean,' Sori said. 'I think that's the big-picture message from this paper,' Sori added. Tidal heating might struggle to create magma oceans. But on icy moons, it can easily make watery oceans due to the bizarrely low density of ice. And that suggests life has a multitude of potentially habitable environments throughout the solar system to call home. Hell's Poster Child The revelation that Io is missing its shallow magma ocean underscores just how little is known about tidal heating. 'We've never really understood where in Io's interior the mantle is melting, how that mantle melt is getting to the surface,' de Kleer said. Our own moon shows evidence of primeval tidal heating too. Its oldest crystals formed 4.51 billion years ago from the stream of molten matter that got blasted off Earth by a giant impact event. But a lot of lunar crystals seem to have formed from a second reservoir of molten rock 4.35 billion years ago. Where did that later magma come from? Nimmo and coauthors offered one idea in a paper published in Nature in December: Maybe Earth's moon was like Io. The moon was significantly closer to Earth back then, and the gravitational fields from the Earth and the sun were battling for control. At a certain threshold, when the gravitational influence of both were roughly equal, the moon might have temporarily adopted an elliptical orbit and gotten tidally heated by Earth's gravitational kneading. Its interior might have remelted, causing a surprise secondary flourish of volcanism. But exactly where within the moon's interior its tidal heating was concentrated—and thus, where all that melting was happening—isn't clear. Perhaps if Io can be understood, so too can our moon—as well as several of the other satellites in our solar system with hidden tidal engines. For now, this volcanic orb remains maddeningly inscrutable. 'Io's a complicated beast,' Davies said. 'The more we observe it, the more sophisticated the data and the analyses, the more puzzling it becomes.' Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.
Associated Press
12-06-2025
- Automotive
- Associated Press
ITS World Congress Partners with SwRI to Lead the 2025 Future Leaders Program
Winners to present transportation solutions at the world's largest ITS conference 'We are investing in the next generation of transportation technology leaders by creating opportunities for students to showcase their innovative solutions on a global stage.'— Laura Chace, President and CEO of ITS America ATLANTA, GA, UNITED STATES, June 12, 2025 / / -- Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is excited to sponsor the Future Leaders Program at ITS World Congress this year, organized in partnership by RX and ITS America (ITSA), taking place August 24-28 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Through the Future Leaders Program, the next generation of ITS leaders will gather and have the opportunity to attend educational sessions, training sessions, meet with exhibitors, sponsors, and technology providers, and network with the global community of ITS professionals who can offer career advice and mentorship. College students are invited to share visions for the future of transportation in a global essay competition ahead of ITS World Congress 2025. Three winning students - one from Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Americas - will receive a paid trip to present their research at the event. 'We are investing in the next generation of transportation technology leaders by creating opportunities for students to showcase their innovative solutions on a global stage,' said Laura Chace, President and CEO of ITS America. 'The contributions from new talent will help shape how we build safer, greener, smarter transportation systems.' The competition requires students to address transportation challenges within their region that align with the conference theme 'Deploying Today, Empowering Tomorrow.' A panel of judges from ITS Asia-Pacific, ITS America, ERTICO, and Southwest Research Institute will select regional finalists before choosing three global winners. 'The Future Leaders Program connects students directly with industry pioneers,' said Josh Johnson, Executive Director of SwRI's Intelligent Transportation Systems Department. 'By presenting at ITS World Congress, students gain real-world experience sharing their research with transportation leaders from around the world.' The Future Leaders Program features a dedicated day of programming on Wednesday, August 27, including expert roundtable discussions, guided tours of exhibits and demonstrations, and resume reviews at the SwRI booth. Students from around the World and local Atlanta-area student groups will participate in special sessions designed to encourage careers in transportation technology. 'ITS World Congress creates life-changing opportunities for students to launch their careers in transportation technology,' said Jaime McAuley, Event Director for ITS America Events at RX Global. 'Winners receive conference admission, round-trip airfare, and access to exclusive networking events where they can connect with potential employers and mentors.' Students can register and view submission guidelines at The submission deadline is July 1, 2025. Danielle Baker 10 to 1 PR [email protected] Visit us on social media: LinkedIn Facebook X Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
NDTV
11-06-2025
- Science
- NDTV
Visual Glitch Leads To Accidental Discovery Of Spiral In Mysterious Oort Cloud
Scientists have long assumed the Oort Cloud, one of the most mysterious structures in our solar system, to be spherical. But during the pre-production of their new space show, "Encounters in the Milky Way," they noticed a strange spiral pattern in the middle of the cloud. The show, which premiered on Monday at New York City's Hayden Planetarium, featured a computer-generated visualisation of the Oort Cloud on the dome. The team was reviewing the animation when they noticed what appeared to be a spiral structure inside the typically spherical cloud shape. It immediately attracted the attention of astronomers and animators, despite not being a part of the project and only happening by chance. The structure surprised the scientists as it looked like a spiral galaxy like ours. Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History and the curator of the show said, "We hit play on the scene, and immediately we saw it. It was just there. I was confused and thought that was super weird. I didn't know if it was an artefact; I didn't know if it was real," as per CNN. During the investigation, David Nesvorny, an institute scientist with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and the Oort Cloud expert said he initially thought the spiral pattern might just be a mistake in the animation. When he rechecked, he found the spiral was real and it wasn't just a glitch. He was surprised to know about this, as he had never noticed it before. Mr Nesvony published a scientific paper in April, "The Astrophysical Journal," saying, "Weird way to discover things... I should know my data better after years of working with it." He explained that the spiral shape in the Oort Cloud happened because of the galactic tide. Although the Sun's gravity controls everything in our solar system, the Oort Cloud is so far away from the Sun that its gravity becomes weaker and it starts to affect the objects there. So, instead of pulling them straight, it twists the way they orbit, giving it a spiral pattern look. The spiral pattern could help scientists better understand how solar systems form and evolve over time.
