OREANDA-NEWS The research satellite of Lomonosov Moscow state University saw unexplained flashes of enormous power from orbit.

Panasyuk said that the light "explosion" was of great power and it was recorded several times by the satellite during the flight. And under the place of explosion no clouds and thunderstorms were observed. He  stressed that at present the source of these "explosions" could not be found.

In addition, he said that it was more difficult to register cosmic rays of extremely high energies with the help of a telescope at Lomonosov than scientists had expected. The reason is  - the Earth's atmosphere was "clogged" by different flashes. Panasyuk explained that these outbreaks occur due to both natural and man-made phenomena.

The Lomonosov satellite was launched into orbit on 28 April 2016 during the first-ever rocket launch from the Vostochny cosmodrome. Then the carrier rocket "Soyuz-2.1 a" put into orbit a scientific satellite of Moscow state University "Lomonosov" spacecraft "AIST-2D" and nanosatellite SamSat-218.

Lomonosov satellite is an international project, which was created by scientists, postgraduates and students from South Korea, Spain, Canada, USA, Poland, Germany, Italy and Spain. "Lomonosov" is designed to study extreme space phenomena in the earth's atmosphere, near space and the Universe, such as gamma-ray bursts or cosmic rays of extremely high energies. In addition, the satellite will monitor the radiation situation and dangerous objects in near-earth space in conjunction with the Master network of ground-based telescopes.

The device was launched to a height of 490 kilometers. Its weight is 645 kilograms and the weight of scientific equipment is 160 kilograms.

The planned duration of work in orbit was three years.

After the launch, the spacecraft began to successfully transmit scientific information. Images were obtained from ultra-wide coverage cameras "SHOCK". At the first shots were captured dozens of flying past the "Lomonosov" artificial satellites and their debris — space debris.

Another task assigned to the satellite was to study the radiation situation around the Earth.

In the summer of 2018 it was reported that the satellite "Lomonosov observed failures in the scientific equipment.

By that time, the satellite had obtained unique results in the field of astrophysics and some applied problems related to space exploration. In particular, the world's first experiment was conducted to study cosmic rays of the highest energies.