It brightened up just a few months later.
At the very least, it contributed to the formation of the dust cloud.
Perhaps, but there’s one more unexpected find from the Great Dimming.
It operates in geostationary orbit, at a distance of 22,236 miles above the equator.
This is more than 90 times further away than the International Space Station.
For instance, it snapped a ton ofimages of the Tongan volcano eruption that occurred on Jan. 15.
What is intriguing is the fact a weather satellite was able to provide this data in the first place.
It could be a big deal for astronomers.
But… there are already satellites orbiting the Earth that might be able to do a similar job.
“Himawari is like a free space telescope!”
said Simon Campbell, an astronomer at Monash University in Australia.
But these cases aren’t always ticked off.
So, Campbell noted, there’s a neat story here about observing space.
You could look at Earth imaging satellites in orbit and repurpose them to study background stars.
Ultimately, the next time a star threatens to go supernova on us, we might already be watching.
