noctilucent cloud Archives

Simulated ablation heights of IDPs in exoplanet atmospheres. Our fiducial simulation is marked in red. Solid and dashed curves signify IDP compositions of MgSiO3 and Fe, respectively. The black dashed curve on the left most panel shows the approximation of the mass injection function Fv(p) for an arbitrary IDP mass flux for comparison with the ablation profiles. -- [astro-ph.EP]

Interplanetary Dust Ablation Seeds Silicate Clouds in Exoplanet Atmospheres

by Keith CowingSeptember 10, 2026September 10, 2026

[astro-ph.EP] Interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) are present throughout the Solar System, with Earth experiencing a mass flux of roughly 100 tonnes of IDPs per day.

Equatorial cuts from MHD simulations (Opher et al., 2024, 2024, accepted) showing the compression of the heliosphere by interstellar clouds with densities of a) 3000 cm−3 and b) 900 cm−3 , where the color contours show neutral hydrogen density. These events may have occurred 2 and 7 Myr ago as our solar system collided with the LxCC and the edge of the Local Bubble, respectively. The red circle shows Earth’s orbit. One can see that Earth experiences densities up to 6000 cm−3 in case (a) and 1500 cm−3 in case (b). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Interstellar, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report

Earth’s Mesosphere During Possible Encounters With Massive Interstellar Clouds 2 and 7 Million Years Ago

by Keith CowingSeptember 12, 2024September 12, 2024

Our solar system’s path has recently been shown to potentially intersect dense interstellar clouds 2 and 7 million years ago: the Local Lynx of Cold Cloud and the edge of […]