Humanity has been staring at the sky for thousands of years, and all we've learned in that time is that space is a crazy place. Every day scientists discover a large number of strange things that give rise to new questions, inspire fear and cause incredible admiration.
The Sagittarius B2 cloud is several million times the mass of the Sun and floats around our Milky Way galaxy. Recently, scientists have established that this cloud is mainly a giant river of raspberry rum.
The fact is that Sagittarius B2 contains 10 billion billion billion liters of alcohol and molecules called ethyl formate. It is this substance that gives raspberries their sweet taste, and rum its distinctive smell. However, the origin of these molecules remains a mystery to scientists, so the opening of the intergalactic pub should be postponed.
Astronomers from the USA, studying the surface of the planet Mercury, discovered 3 craters, which in their shape resemble the silhouette of Mickey Mouse. Scientists have said that it was from space that Disney drew his ideas.
Of course, serious scientists are just joking. And they can be understood: every day they receive thousands of letters from enthusiasts who have found another crater that looks like this or that object.
Everyone knows that shooting stars are meteorites that hit the atmosphere. But many do not know that there are really shooting stars.
When a supermassive black hole swallows a binary star system, one star is swallowed up by the black hole, and the second one shoots out to the side, as if from a huge slingshot. Just imagine a huge fire ball gas, which is 4 times the size of our Sun, rushing at a speed of millions of kilometers per hour. It doesn't sound so romantic anymore.
You've probably heard that it rains diamonds on Jupiter and Saturn. But what about a planet that is itself a huge diamond?
Exoplanet PSR J1719-1438 b was discovered in 2009. It is located at a distance of 3,900 light years from us. And 1/3 of the mass of the planet is pure diamond, the rest is graphite. According to scientists, on such planets there may be areas completely covered with kilometers of diamonds (diamond fields).
If you look up at night, you may see one of the most bright stars in the sky - Fomalhaut (Fomalhaut). It is located not far from our Milky Way galaxy and is 2.3 times heavier than the Sun.
Scientists have been studying the star for a long time, but the real magic happened when, with the help of the latest equipment they took infrared shots of her. It turned out that Fomalhaut is similar to the famous eye of Sauron (Sauron) from the movie "The Lord of the Rings".
The black area in the center is the star itself, and the oval around it is space debris. Looks creepy but beautiful.
No metaphors. Indeed, at a distance of 10 billion light years from us is the largest reservoir of water in the universe. This rain cloud is 100 thousand times larger than the Sun, contains 140 trillion times more water than in the oceans, and, as scientists suggest, it envelops a supermassive black hole.
“Now that we know about it, we can only hope that the wind does not blow in our direction,” astronomers joke.
But this thing in space, perhaps, will be found by another alien civilization. The Voyager spacecraft was launched in 1977 and is still exploring space. Thanks to him, we have photographs of the Earth from a distance of 6 billion km, as well as images of Jupiter and Saturn. But the most interesting thing is what is attached to the device itself.
On the body of the Voyager there is a golden record on which a greeting is recorded in 55 languages, music different peoples, voices of people, sounds of nature, 100 photos and coordinates of the planet Earth. This message was sent in the hope that some kind of extraterrestrial civilization will notice the device.
One of the most interesting discoveries is the gravitational lens. This is a formation in space, the mass of which is so great that its gravitational field it bends the direction electromagnetic radiation. Just like an ordinary magnifying glass bends a beam of light.
That is, when we look through a cosmic lens, we see an object outside our field of view and slightly distorted. Thanks to such lenses, scientists can observe objects that are in other galaxies.
Scientists say that beyond our visible universe there is something huge. We cannot see what it is, but we observe that it is something that is sucking in parts of the neighboring Universes, like a gutter draining water.
The scientists called it the Dark Stream because it was the only name that sounded mysterious and ominous enough. Some of the astrophysicists believe that this is the edge of another large universe that is moving towards ours. But there is no exact answer yet, so it remains to wait until a more powerful telescope is invented.
Mankind has reached great heights in space exploration. It is in a relentless search for undiscovered wonders, incredible riches and terrible secrets lurking in the depths of extraterrestrial canyons. The main goal was achieved in the 20th century: the first man flew into space.
In fact, the cosmos has even more secrets than you might think. There are planets that look almost like Earth. There are also supermassive black holes that absorb galaxies and radio waves. They may contain ice and mud. It seems that scientists will never be able to say with certainty that they really know and understand space. After all, much remains unexplained.
The article presents 11 new interesting discoveries that prove that the cosmos remains unknown.
Scientists are passionate about solving a very exciting question: Does the cosmos contain life? That's why they sent flatworms there. Flatworms are known for their regenerative abilities and it was interesting to see how they would behave in space.
When cut into pieces, flatworms can fully regenerate into full-fledged organisms. But in space, they didn't just grow up: some of them were reborn not with one head, but with two. This is an anomaly that many of us have not even heard of.
It does not look strange at all that everything interesting is located on long distance from U.S. The galaxy is too big and far away to explore! There seems to be reason to believe that there is a void in space, and that our Milky Way is part of it.
The universe is like Swiss cheese. It has dense regions filled with galaxies and holes that are relatively empty. The KBC void, named after the three astronauts Keenan, Barger and Cowie who discovered it in 2013, is the largest void ever observed. Its radius is over 1 billion light years.
Gravitational waves have existed for centuries, but no one has been able to prove that they are real. Finally, in February, LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) announced that they had finally been discovered. They contribute to the expansion and compression of space. Gravitational waves carry unique information about space, the objects and events that create them. This information cannot be obtained in any other way!
LIGO has detected gravitational waves twice this year. They came from two colliding black holes that swirl around each other. These processes have been invisible for many years.
Yes, we are losing air. Its quantity is no more than 90 metric tons, so there is nothing to worry about. It turns out that the small moon moon receives most of this oxygen.
Some of the atoms and molecules in the upper part of our atmosphere get lost and escape into space. Some of them fall into lunar surface, and ultimately into particles of lunar soil that astronauts spaceship Apollo was brought to Earth. Scientists were baffled by the fact that the isotopes of oxygen-18 and oxygen-17 found on the moon, which are found on Earth. Now the secret is out!
Researchers seriously believe that there is a planet the size of Neptune. It is really very big and is hidden somewhere behind Pluto. Its orbit is probably quite distorted because it is nearly impossible to observe. However, the so-called "planet nine" definitely affects the movement of other bodies in the outer part of our planet. solar system. There's a massive celestial body lurking out there somewhere, and scientists will soon discover it!
Recent studies show that most stars are born with at least one companion. The closest neighbor of the sun, Alpha Centauri, is fraught with not one, but three stars! Now scientists are more certain than ever that our own sun once had a twin. Conventionally, he is called Nemesis.
Most likely, it was not a huge twin, it simply dissipated into Milky Way without leaving any trace. Scientists believe that this is the fate of most double stars, which simply go their separate ways.
NASA's Juno spacecraft recently reached Jupiter. This flight has provided humanity with some of the most surreal and breathtaking images of the planet's giant formations. Although no major scientific discoveries, photos taken by JunoCam prove that people should not fly too far to enjoy the beauty of the universe. The footage taken from the Juno spacecraft is simply amazing!
Mars hides one of the largest ice deposits known to mankind. It is about the size of New Mexico and contains up to 85% water, while the rest is mostly mud. The volume of this ice sheet is truly astonishing - it surpasses Lake Superior, which contains over 12,000 cubic kilometers of water.
Methyl isocyanate molecules have been found in the dust and gas that surrounds protostars. They are very similar to our sun at the beginning of its existence. It is believed that the Earth and other planets were formed from the material left behind after the formation of our sun. Thus, by studying young stars, scientists are getting closer to understanding how life originated on our planet! It's not the first time the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array) community has noticed something interesting. Not so long ago, a group of astronomers made interesting discovery: The gas surrounding a young star contains real sugar molecules.
Proxima Centauri is a star that is just around the corner from sunlight Earth. It takes 4.2 light years to reach it. Scientists have discovered a planet in the so-called habitable zone. Liquid water may exist on Proxima Centauri, which increases the chances of life developing on it.
Dubbed Proxima b is this newly found planet. It has a mass similar to that of the Earth. Breakthrough Foundation board members Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner have announced they will build a microchip-sized spacecraft to explore habitable worlds. The project was called Breakthrough Starshot.
With the discovery of Proxima b, it is likely that the planet will become a target for a new type of spacecraft.
