Unveiling the Mysteries of the Universe
Less than 100 miles above our heads lies an unending universe, filled with incredible phenomena that our puny brains can barely grasp. Let's explore some mind-blowing facts about our planet and the vastness of space.
The Earth's Shape: Not Quite Round
The Earth is not a perfect sphere. As it spins, the centrifugal force creates a slightly squashed appearance, with a latitudinal bulge of only 0.3% bigger at the equator. This is still a 26-mile hump, larger than the height difference between Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench.
The Sun: Nuclear Fusion, Not Burning
The Sun is not burning up, but it undergoes nuclear fusion. Instead of atoms being rearranged, the very nature of the elements changes, converting hydrogen into helium and releasing an astonishing amount of energy — around 300 million tons per minute.
The Heaviest Thing in the Solar System: The Sun
The Sun holds a whopping 99.85% of the solar system's mass. Its core, which makes up just 2% of its volume, has a density 15 times that of lead, contributing to its immense weight.
The Heaviest Star: R136a1
R136a1, a giant star located in the Tarantula Nebula, weighs 315 times that of our Sun. It carries superheavy elements, giving it unimaginable mass and intensity.
The Biggest Star: UY Scuti
UY Scuti is the biggest star known to man, with a radius 1,700 times larger than our Sun's. It stands out even from a distance of 5,219 light years.
The Search for Planet Nine
Scientists theorize the existence of a ninth planet in our solar system, balancing out the unevenness of objects in the Kuiper Belt. This undiscovered planet would be about 10 times the mass of Earth.
The Phantom Planet
The furthest known planet from our sun is Neptune, circling the sun once every 165 years. But the theoretical Planet Nine would have an orbit 20 times further from the sun, taking 10,000-20,000 years to make a single trip around. However, without concrete images, this phantom planet remains purely theoretical.
Counting the Stars
Counting every single star in the sky sounds like an endless task, but with a little math, we can estimate how long it would take. Our Milky Way galaxy holds between 100 to 400 billion stars. If we assume there are around 10 trillion different galaxies in the universe, that gives us approximately one septillion stars. If you counted one star per second, it would take over thirty one quadrillion years to count them all.
Spellbinding Supernovas
Stars don't last forever, and when they die, they go out with a bang. These explosions, called supernovas, involve massive stars that collapse under their own gravity. The resulting shockwaves blast apart the outer layer of the star, sometimes creating unique shapes like a bow tie or the Eye of Sauron.
Bizarre Black Holes
When the remnants of a supernova collapse in on themselves, they form black holes. These infinitely collapsing objects have such strong gravity that even light is trapped. Black holes can vary in size, with some being more than 2,600 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. On the other end of the scale, scientists believe black holes can be as small as a single atom but still have a massive relative mass.
Weird White Holes
White holes are theoretical opposites of black holes. Instead of consuming matter, white holes would spew matter out into space. While they remain purely theoretical, just like black holes were until recently, maybe in the future we will discover their existence.
Rain of Diamonds
In the atmospheres of gas giants like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, lightning storms convert methane into soot, which then hardens into chunks of graphite. As these chunks fall through the planet's atmosphere, they are compressed into diamonds. On planets like Saturn, thousands of tons of diamonds rain down every year.
The Diamond Planet
In the Cancri constellation, scientists discovered a super-Earth called 55 Cancri e. This planet is estimated to be made mostly of carbon and has a mass eight times greater than Earth. It has been dubbed the "diamond planet" due to its abundance of diamonds.
