On April 9, 2022, it is estimated that friends should see a news, "UFOs larger than the full moon appear in alaska, the United States, scientists said: may be Chinese rockets", this headline is still very exciting, what is the situation?
Measca's Empty Ball of Light: Related to The Chinese Rocket?
At about 5 a.m. on March 29, a couple in Alaska, USA, who photographed the Aurora Borealis, found 6 shocking photos in their cameras: a ball of light that is difficult to judge the height is slowly passing through the sky, and according to the perspective analysis of the background and the ball of light, this height may be extremely high!
The couple used an auto-exposure technique to shoot the aurora, 45 consecutive exposures after taking a photo, constantly looping, which is the best way to shoot the aurora that appears, but left an unsightly trail of light spots on 6 of the photos.
Because this spot moves very fast, so it leaves a long white spot on the photo, 6 photos have a total of 270 seconds of time, that is to say, this ball of light flies in the sky for up to 270 seconds, these photos must be wasted, but the question is, what exactly will leave such a mark on the photo?
Coincidentally, Fairbanks resident Leslie Smallwood also saw the ball of light, which, according to him, was larger than the full moon and was slowly turning, flying from northeast to southwest.
The public speculated that this may be a UFO, the couple is also beating their chests, the day happened so big that they were actually sleeping, if the scene observed, how shocking should it be? But the truth was soon revealed, because scientists came on the scene, and the public was not allowed to speculate:
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Harvard, Massachusetts, received the reports and analyzed the trajectory in detail, believing it to be due to a three-stage rocket left in orbit by the Chinese Long March rocket after launch on March 29. Jonathan said it was caused by the leakage of fuel from the three-stage rocket forming a ball of fog droplets that could be several kilometers in diameter, reflecting sunlight near the morning and dusk line.
China's Long March rockets? Is it the truth?
Chinese rockets have done a big thing, this phenomenon has successfully aroused the ideas of many people in the West, but scientists judge whether there is any reason in the end, let's do a simple analysis, on March 29, China did launch a rocket, the following is the report of Xinhua News Agency:
At 17:50 on March 29, the mainland successfully launched the Long March 6 carrier rocket at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, and the Launched Pujiang-2 and Tiankun-2 satellites successfully entered the predetermined orbit, and the launch mission was a complete success.
Jonathan's conclusion, at least can still correspond to the launch of the Long March 6 rocket, then the problem is, the time seems to be completely sorry to come, the time of the mainland launch of the Long March 6 is 17:50 on March 29, and the time the Americans saw in Alaska is 5 a.m. on March 29.
Did it really appear to cross?
The answer is no! The reason for this phenomenon is the division of time zones on the earth, the time in the eastern hemisphere is earlier than that in the western hemisphere, that is to say, when the eastern hemisphere ushers in March 29, the western hemisphere of the United States is still on March 28, so sometimes we see that the Americans mark the Eastern Time as one day later than ours (in fact, 12 hours), if you really want to compare, then the Eastern Time (Western Fifth District) + 12 hours is the mainland's Beijing time (Eastern Eighth Region).
Therefore, when the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center was launched at 17:50 on March 29, it was only 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time, that is, the moment before the sun had not yet risen but was about to rise, and Alaska (West 10th District) at this time still had to be subtracted by 16 hours, which was 1:50 a.m., so it was entirely possible to see the traces of the Long March 6 in Alaska 4 hours after the launch.
The trajectory is right
Judging from the trajectory witnessed by Fairbanks resident Leslie Smallwood, the trajectory of this ball of light is very strange, from northeast to southwest, our common satellite trajectory is always from northwest to southeast, why is this trajectory reversed?
Is this really the case with the long march 6 orbit?
There is really no relevant information in the public news reports, but from the information found on Theavens-above, this track actually matches:
| Orbital eccentricity: | 0.0027623 |
| Orbital inclination: | 97.7831° |
| Perigee height: | 555 km |
| Apogee Altitude: | 594 km |
This target is the trajectory of the CZ-6A R/B that launched the satellite, as shown below:
The detailed orbital parameters of the CZ-6A R/B are as follows:
Why such a weird track? The answer is sun-synchronous orbit!
What are the characteristics of a Sun-synchronous orbit (sun-synchronous orbit or short for SSO)? There are three points:
- 1. The angular velocity of the satellite orbital plane rotation is the same as the angular velocity of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, but this is the orbit around the Earth and not around the Sun.
- 2, the sun-synchronous orbit, the satellite will not be affected by seasonal changes, control the temperature of the satellite, adjust the orientation of the solar panels, are relatively easy.
- 3. Satellites in sunsynch orbit, the light when passing through the ground below the same latitude is stable, and the interference caused by changes in light is excluded when observing the earth.
Simply put, if you pass over the ground at the same time, the inclination of this orbit must be about 90°, why is this the case?
Orbits of artificial Earth satellites whose orbital plane rotates around the Earth's axis of rotation in the same direction as the Earth's rotation and whose rotational angular velocity is equal to the average angular velocity of the Earth's rotation (i.e., 0.9856°/d or 360°/a). The semi-major axis of the sunsysynchronous orbit α, eccentricity e, and inclination i; these three orbital elements must meet the following relationships:
So=-4.7737×10-15 (1-e)2a(7/2)
Where a is in km. From this formula, it can be understood that the inclination of the sun-synchronous orbit must be greater than 90 °, that is to say, it is a retrograde orbit, standing on the ground to see the satellite will appear in the field of vision from the northeast direction, and then disappear in the southwest direction (the earth rotates from west to east, and the general satellite launch is to save fuel, it is launched from west to east).
The sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination angle greater than 90 ° also has the characteristics of a polar orbit, which can overlook the entire earth's surface, such as meteorological satellites and earth resource satellites generally choose a sun-synchronous orbit to make the best image of the ground target taken.
So the trajectory problem is also correct, and the Long March 6 reform (CZ-6A) did launch a sun-synchronous satellite.
SSO orbit
Why is The third level still on track?
This question is easier to answer, because when launching a satellite, the three-stage rocket needs to accelerate the satellite to the first cosmic speed, so the three-stage rocket after the satellite is detached is almost the same speed as the satellite, so the three-stage rocket will remain in orbit for a long time.
But the three-stage rocket is much larger than the satellite, it has a lot of fuel, may cause fuel leakage due to various factors, if at this time just pass near the morning and dusk line, then these leaked fuel will form a cloud of fuel droplets, reflecting the sunlight and becoming a UFO photosphere seen on the ground.
According to the height of the satellite, the height of the cloud formed by the three-stage rocket is also about 550 kilometers, which is very high and can still be seen by witnesses, which means that the diameter of the fuel droplet cloud formed is really large.
Extended reading: Western hype long march 5 core class crash!
The re-entry of the core stage of its carrier rocket after the launch of the "Tianhe" core module on April 29, 2021, which was originally just a very normal news, whether it was NASA or ESA, or Russia after the launch of the rocket fell back into the atmosphere, but in early May 2021, the western media described it was very shocking:
First image of rogue 21-ton Chinese rocket shows it glowing 435 miles above Earth's surface just days before it is set to make an uncontrolled reentry that could rain debris over NYC
Photos of the "rogue" Chinese rocket show it will re-enter Earth uncontrollably in a few days, potentially leaving debris over New York
INCOMING! Chinese rocket falling to Earth ‘will crash on Saturday’ after panicked scientists reveal it’s out of control
Coming soon! Panicked scientists say the runaway Chinese rocket "will crash on Saturday"
Scary enough, the Western media is such a disgusting person, many Western people who do not know the truth have accused China, of course, more people who understand also know that this is just a consistent trick of the Western media, as long as friends understand the reason. (End)
reference:
https://www.space.com/alaska-spinning-orb-of-light