15 Bizarre Things in Space

From Quasars to mysterious donut-shaped rocks appearing in photographs, these are 15 strange and bizarre things one might find in space, things so massive in scope we may never fully understand them.

15 – Hyper-Velocity Stars,

• The common belief is that shooting stars are meteorites burning up in our atmosphere
• The reality is: shooting stars are extremely rare, 1 in a 100 million
• In 2005 we learned of a “hypervelocity star” shooting out of our galaxy at 530 miles per second
• It’s theorised once a planet reaches the center of a galaxy, a super-massive black hole, it’s ejected with such force that all we see is a flash in the sky, so it’s a good thing we’re so damn far away from the center

14 – Anti-Matter,

• The particles that make up normal matter, you, me, this internet video, also have an opposite version known as anti-matter
• An electron is negative, but a positron is positive. When matter and its anti-matter collide, they’re converted into pure energy based on Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation
• It’s believed this might fuel futuristic space crafts

13 – Quasar,

• These are lights shining in the distant parts of the galaxy
• Quasars release more light and energy than hundreds of galaxies combined
• And the general concencus is that they must be monstrous super-massive black holes at the center of distant galaxies, though their scale is beyond what we could measure

12 – Gliese 581c,

• You remember one of those super-earths they announced a while back? Well, technically life COULD live there, but only one a small part of it – a ring
• You see, one side of the planet is continually bathed in heat from the dwarf sun in its system, but since its so close that dwarf sun puts out SO much heat that it would vaporise you or me
• Whereas the other side is bitter cold, so therefore if you plan to visit there sometime in the distant future, you may want to suck in your gut

11 – The Cosmic Microwave,

• Though the big bang hasn’t yet been fundamentally proven, cosmic microwave background noise or CMBs were first detected in 1960, radio noise emanating from everywhere in space
• It’s suggested the only way this radiation could be EVERYWHERE is due to a colossal explosion, one that formed our universe
• As we drift further and further into the dark recess of space, radiation should lessen

10 – Sagittarius B2,

• We’ve only recently gathered the technology to be able to see the center of our universe, and we found something interesting
• There’s a dust cloud known as Sagittarius, and, according to well-educated theories, it should taste like raspberries and smell like rum
• The gas consists of ethyl formate, known to give raspberries their flavour, and rum its smell
• You can’t drink or eat it though – it’ll kill ya

9 – Dark Matter,

• This is a theory, but a popular one
• It goes that we can’t detect dark matter with currently existing technology, but that it exists, and it makes up the bulk of matter in our universe
• Candidates range from neutrinos to invisible black holes, to a dark, universe-sized bedsheet
• Some scientists question its existence though

8 – Gliese 436 b,

• If you thought the two-faced planet was bad, Gliese b is composed entirely of ice, at 439 degrees temperature
• That’s right, it’s a fiery, inferno planet made of ice
• The only reason ice can stay solid, is purely because gravity locks it in place, molecules densely packed so they can’t evaporate
• If you’re visiting, I recommend flame-resistant skin and thick fur boots

7 – Jelly Doughnut,

• On Mars, the rover has gathered a vast array of photos
• But this one spiked some interest – in the span of a few weeks, two separate photos were produced with a mysterious rock appearing, as if from nowhere
• Theories ranged from a fungus, to a doughnut, to aliens checking out the rover
• But most people chalk it up to a rogue rock the rover happened to kick up as it drove

6 – The Planet Made of Diamonds,

• 55 Cancri e – one a star in a binary system, but its partner began to cannibalize it – the star wasn’t able to pull away its carbon core, which turn the planets surface into crystallized diamonds
• Its worth if we could harvest said diamonds? 22.9 nonillion dollars, a nice little profit
• One third of the planet is pure diamond, and unlike Earths atmosphere, Cancri relies on graphite, diamond and some other silicates
• If life evolved here, it would look like a vampire cloud from Star Trek

5 – The Nazi Space Station,

• This was seen through Google’s map of the moon, a V-shaped object complete with lights
• This is no small object though – on Earth it’d be 2 or 3 times bigger than traditional space-ships
• The lights lining up the V-shape indicate a very strange formation, one we can’t yet be sure of
• And if it IS a nazi base, suffice to say they’re a bit late to the party

4 – The X-Shaped Spaceship,

• In 2010, Hubble telescope discovered a strange object hurtling through space at over 10,000 miles per hour
• Most chalk it up to 2 asteroids colliding to form a strange shape and tail
• But what has never been seen before is that the 460-foot wide nucleus is OUTSIDE the dust halo, separate from the light trail
• But they don’t have enough data to make an accurate call, and the shape is indeed quite strange

3 – The Himiko Cloud,

• This may just look like a shapeless purple cloud, and it is, but it’s also one of the earliest objects ever found – dating back to just 800 million years after the big bang
• It’s also huge, half the size of our milky way in one colossal gas formation
• This cloud gives scientists a vague glimpse into the early formation of galaxies, a mysterious blob discovered from the dawn of time

2 – Mickey Mouse,

• Mercury, NASA snags a photo of the planets surface and we find, strangely enough, the logo of Mickey Mouse
• Disney has neither confirmed nor denied rumours their marketing budget has exceeded the technological advancements of man

1 – The Large Quasar Group,

• We’ve talked about the Quasar, but here’s one that breaks the laws of astrophysics
• Our galaxy is 100,000 light years across, so if you look at the night sky, it’s a photo of tens of thousands of years ago, and it’ll take that long for light to reach us
• The Large Quasar group is 4 billion light years across, and according to the laws of astrophysics the maximum depth any structure can attain is 1.2 billion light years
• It’s a mystery, one that persists to this day

LINKS
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http://www.space.com

http://listverse.com

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http://voices.yahoo.com

http://www.news.com.au