Scientists discover that the "king of meteor showers" may be ten times older than previously thought

The rocks that make up the Geminid meteor shower at the end of each year may have been created by a chaotic event that occurred 18,000 years ago, which could make the meteorites about 10 times older than previously estimated, a study has found.

The Geminid meteors, which occur beginning in mid-December each year, come from the Geminid constellation (where it got its name from the constellation) located between the constellations Taurus and Cancer, which is the location from which they appear in the sky.

But this meteor shower, often referred to as the Geminid meteor shower, or the king of meteor showers, actually originates from an Apollo asteroid (a group of near-Earth asteroids (NEA)) called Phaethon (3200 Phaethon), a strange blue asteroid oscillating Along its watermelon-shaped orbit to come within just 0.14 astronomical units of the Sun, or about a tenth of the distance between Earth and the Sun, at this point in its orbit, Phaethon, which is 5.1 km across, gains a strange comet-like tail.

For years, astronomers thought the tail was made up of rock fragments that form the dust cloud that in turn generates the Geminids. However, recent observations suggest that the present tail particles are a thousand times smaller than the bead-sized Geminis rocks, and are probably evaporated sodium, not dust.

One theory suggests that Phaethon deposited Geminis fragments near Earth about 2,000 years ago, because that was when the rock came closest to the sun, lead study author Hangbin Joo, a graduate student in astronomy at Seoul National University in South Korea, told the website. "Live Science."

However, Gu pointed out that if Phaethon produced the Geminis via comet-like activity, the asteroid would need to contain massive amounts of ice to eject the fragments, which computer models suggest is unlikely.

Instead, Jo and co-author Masateru Ishiguro, a professor in the astronomy program at Seoul National University, focused on a different mechanism: rotational instability.

Fragments of the asteroid that struck Berlin reveal that it is an "extremely rare" space rock.

In such a process, solar radiation "pushes" the asteroid, causing it to spin so slowly that, after millions of years, it will spin fast enough for centrifugal forces to overcome the gravitational forces that glue the asteroid's smallest components together, Gu said.

In the case of Phaethon, this instability would cause it to partially break up, creating millions of pebbles, and quite possibly the formation of twins.

To test their theory, scientists worked backwards from the present day, determining Phaethon's position and speed over the past 100,000 years. They then chose nine time periods, each 1,000 years long, during which they simulated the asteroid ejecting pieces of rock.

In this simulation, Phaethon was designed as a ball weighing 116 trillion kilograms and rotating fast enough to shed about 300,000 fragments, most of them from its middle. This would mimic the behavior of an asteroid if solar radiation made it rotationally unstable. The team then traced the paths of this debris over thousands of years, taking into account the gravitational forces of all the planets in the solar system.

Simulations revealed that a super-spinning Phaethon could have produced twins. The results indicated that the total mass of meteorites was on average 10 million tons, which is consistent with predictions made using NASA's Parker Solar Probe and two simulations that roughly mimic the observed paths of the twins.

In these models, Phaethon's mass fall occurred 18,000 years ago, leading scientists to conclude that this occurred when the particles responsible for the twins were most likely launched into space. However, the simulations also revealed that these are only a small portion of the fragments generated during this event, which the combined gravity of Venus and Earth turned toward us about 4,000 years ago.

The new observations indicate that the space rock is rotating faster again, shortening its rotation period by 4 milliseconds each year, Gu said. This means that new meteorites may be born one day, but after millions of years.

Scientists hope that the Japanese DESTINY+ mission bound for Phaethon, scheduled to launch in 2025, will find evidence of rotational instability.

Russia : Innovating a sponge based on fish collagen to stop bleeding

Scientists of the Pyatigorsk Institute of Medicine and Pharmacy have created a sponge based on fish collagen, which is useful in stopping blood bleeding and regenerating damaged tissue.

Dmitry Kumpantsev, head of the pharmaceutical technology department at the institute, indicated in an interview with the Russian TASS news agency that this sponge has a high ability to absorb moisture.

He says: “In our department, we invented a sponge to stop bleeding and regenerate tissues based on fish collagen. As for the sponges that are currently produced, their basis is animal collagen. However, this type of raw material has a number of disadvantages, for example the possibility of transmitting zoonotic infections. As for fish collagen, it is closer in structure to Human tissue collagen.

According to him, the new sponge has a structure containing cells of equal size, which makes it porous and highly capable of absorbing moisture. "This is clearly observed compared to that found in industrial samples, and this is very important for a sponge intended to stop bleeding."

He points out that in the first stage, the researchers studied the collagen material that we obtained from aquaculture waste and determined the collagen concentration, the dynamic viscosity of the collagen gel solution, the pH value, and other properties.

He says: “Fish collagen is distinguished by its high purity, uniform molecular size, and high content of the amino acid hydroxyproline, which is very important for the construction of connective tissue in humans. The purification method used in the extraction allowed it to maintain a structure very close to that of the original type I collagen.”

According to him, the most difficult stage in this work was the stage of converting the collagen gel into a sponge. Because the initial gel concentration and pH, the presence of cryoprotectants, and drying conditions all greatly affect the final result of this process.