Random Facts No One Knows - We are only beginning to see the wonders of the vast and enigmatic universe.
There is a large amount to discover and learn about the universe's age to the farthest known objects.
We'll discover 15 fascinating astronomical facts in this post that will amaze you -
Table of Contents
1. The Universe is mostly made up of Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Dark Matter makes up 26.8% of the universe's mass–energy content. Dark matter is a component of the universe that can be detected by its gravitational pull.
Dark Energy accounts for 68.2% of the universe's mass–energy content. Dark energy is a repulsive force that drives the universe's rapid expansion.
The remaining 5% of the universe is made up of ordinary matter, which includes stars, planets, and other celestial bodies.
2. The Universe is expanding
In 1929, Edwin Hubble gave the first observational evidence for the universe having a finite age.
Using the largest telescope of the time, he discovered that the farther away a galaxy appears to be from us, the faster it appears to recede into space.
This suggests that the universe is expanding in all directions at the same rate about 41.9 miles (67.5 kilometers) per second per megaparsec (a distance equivalent to 3.26 million light-years).
The universe has no center. Everything is distancing itself from everything else.
3. The age of the Universe is about 13.8 billion years
This estimate was announced in 2020 by scientists who re-evaluated data from the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft and reviewed data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile.
The scientists examined an image of the oldest light in the universe, known as the cosmic microwave background.
This light is the "afterglow" of the Big Bang, which occurred 380,000 years after the universe's origin when protons and electrons combined to form the first atoms.
4. The Universe contains billions of Galaxies
There are between 200 billion and 2 trillion galaxies in the observable cosmos. Expert estimates vary, but a reasonable range is between 100 billion and 200 billion galaxies.
The Hubble Extreme Deep Field estimated 170 billion galaxies. A theoretical calculation that accounted for galaxies too small, faint, and distant to be seen estimated 2 trillion galaxies.
Galaxies range in size from dwarfs with tens of millions of stars to giants with trillions of stars.
Most galaxies have diameters of 1,000 to 100,000 parsecs (about 3,000 to 300,000 light years) and are separated by millions of parsecs.
5. The Universe has Black Holes
Black Hole - The region of space where the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.
Astronomers believe that supermassive black holes are located at the center of most galaxies, including the Milky Way.
These black holes have a million to billion times the mass of the sun.
The universe could contain 40 trillion black holes. Stellar black holes make up about 1% of the universe that we can see, which is the same mass as billions of galaxies.
6. The Universe contains Neutron Stars
Neutron Star - These are incredibly dense stars that are formed when a huge star explodes in a supernova.
NASA estimates that there are as many as a billion neutron stars in our Milky Way galaxy.
Neutron stars have the following features -
- They are the most massive stellar objects.
- They are extremely small in comparison to other astronomical objects.
- They are the offspring of once-massive stars that expanded to four to eight times the size of our sun before exploding in devastating supernovae.
- They have a density of 5 x 1017 kg/m3 on average.
- The intermediate layers, which are largely neutrons, are most likely in a "superfluid" condition.
- Despite the tremendous temperatures, which can reach 1,000,000 K, the outside 1 km (0.6 mile) is solid.
- This solid layer's surface, where the pressure is lowest, is made of an exceptionally dense type of iron.
- NASA thinks that our Milky Way galaxy contains up to a billion neutron stars.
7. Sunset on Mars is blue
The blue sunsets on Mars are caused by fine particles in the atmosphere, which allows blue light to penetrate through more efficiently than other colors.
The big dust particles induce "Mie Scattering" which filters out red light and allows only blue light to reach our eyes.
The Martian atmosphere is extremely thin, with a pressure roughly 1% that of Earth. It is primarily composed of carbon dioxide and dust.
The dust contains iron and scatters red light, causing the sky to turn red.
The prolonged voyage through the atmosphere scatters and filters so much red light at sunset that blue light passes through.
8. The largest known structure - Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall
It is a massive galaxy filament that stretches over 10 billion light-years and contains several galaxy clusters.
The structure was discovered in 2013 by a team of astronomers from the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics.
It is named after the constellations Hercules and Corona Borealis, which it passes through.
9. Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic events in the Universe
Gamma-ray burst releases more energy in 10 seconds than our Sun will in its entire life
These bursts are believed to be caused by the collapse of massive stars or the collision of two neutron stars.
Gamma-ray bursts are detected by satellites orbiting Earth, such as NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
The study of these bursts has helped us understand more about the universe's structure and its evolution.
10. A tablespoon of matter of a neutron star weighs about one billion tons
This is the same as Mount Everest's weight.
Neutron stars are around 12-25 miles (20-40 km) broad, about the size of a city on Earth.
They have masses that are roughly 1.4 times that of the sun.
If a teaspoon of neutron star material was dropped on Earth, it would explode with such force that the floor would be destroyed.
11. Venus is the hottest planet
Venus is so hot because it is surrounded by a dense atmosphere that is 100 times thicker than our atmosphere on Earth.
The surface of Venus is heated as sunlight passes through the atmosphere.
Venus's atmosphere differs from Earth's in the following ways:
- It contains mostly carbon dioxide, whereas nitrogen dominates the Earth's atmosphere.
- The Venusian atmosphere is devoid of water.
- It also contains trace amounts of nitrogen and sulfuric acid clouds.
12. We have no idea where the Moon came from
Yes, it's true that Scientists do not know how the Moon arose, but the most widely accepted theory is the giant-impact hypothesis.
According to this idea, the Moon formed when a Mars-sized asteroid crashed with Earth.
The impact ripped a section of the Earth's crust off, which spun into space and settled into orbit around the planet.
13. Milky Way will collide with the Andromeda galaxy
In around 4.5 billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are predicted to collide. These two galaxies are the most massive in the Local Group.
They're getting closer at a rate of 110 kilometers per second. The Milky Way galaxy is 2.5 million light years away from the Andromeda galaxy.
The collision will happen on three levels -
- First hit: The spiral structure of both galaxies will be broken.
- Merger: The two galaxies will combine to form a massive, football-shaped elliptical galaxy.
- Completion: The merger will be complete after about another 3 billion years.
14. We won't see Halley's Comet until 2061
The reappearance of Halley's Comet is projected around mid-2061.
It is the only known short-period comet that can be seen with the naked eye from Earth. It revolves around the Sun every 75.3 years.
Halley's Comet was last observed in the vicinity of Earth in 1986. An international fleet of spacecraft greeted it in space.
15. The Milky Way smells like Rum and Raspberries
Because it contains ethyl formate, the Milky Way smells like rum and tastes like raspberries. This molecule gives raspberries their flavor and smells like rum.
Astronomers using Spain's IRAM telescope discovered ethyl formate in a dust cloud at the heart of the Milky Way in 2009.
They were looking for amino acids, which are the building blocks of life, in the sky around Sagittarius B2, a dust cloud near the galactic core.
