Earth’s Dust Cloud Satellites Confirmed

Hungarian astronomers have confirmed the existence of dust clouds orbiting the Earth at approximately 400,000 km. The clouds named after their discoverer, polish astronomer Kazimierz Kordylewski, exist in semi-stable points in the Earth/Moon gravitational system and have thus far been a point of contention amongst astronomers due to their faintness.

The discovery follows work earlier this year by a Hungarian team led by Gábor Horváth of Eötvös Loránd University, which modeled the Kordylewski clouds to assess how they form and how they might be detected. The clouds were suspected to be located at semi-stable points in the Earth/Moon system known as LaGrangian points (in this case the points L4 and L5).

Artist’s impression of the Lagrangian points L5 and L4 where Kordylewski clouds are believed to exist (Credit: G. Horváth)

These points form an equal-sided triangle with the Earth and Moon and move around the Earth with the Moon. Despite only being semi-stable due to the Sun’s gravitational influence, scientists believe these are the ideal points for interplanetary dust to collect.

Kordylewski observed two nearby clusters of dust at L5 in 1961 and there have been multiple reports of similar observations since, but their extreme faintness makes them difficult to detect and many scientists doubted their…