#Everything about the universe #There is no doubt that our universe is a wild place, and throughout history, humans have tried to understand it. Although we have come a long way in understanding, new discoveries are made every day. Whether it's a cloud of alcohol gas floating at the center of the Milky Way, or Einstein's theory of relativity, it's enough to drive astrophysicists crazy. The following 25 things about the universe will take you to a deeper understanding of the universe.
1. The Milky Way
Tonight, as the sun sets, look up. Depending on how dark it is outside, you might see thousands of stars there, all of which come from our own Milky Way. However, if you look closely, you may find one of the few galaxies that are visible to the naked eye besides ourselves.
2. Other galaxies
If that makes you feel small, it should be, because scientists estimate there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe that you wouldn't see without a telescope. In addition, each of these galaxies has billions of stars, which estimates the total number of stars in the universe to 10 billion trillion. That's more than the number of grains of sand on Earth.
3. Dark matter
All the stars, galaxies, and black holes in the universe make up only about 5 percent of their mass. As crazy as it sounds, the other 95% are missing. Scientists decided to call this mysterious substance "dark matter." To this day, they're still not sure where it is or what it is.
4. Alcohol space cloud
For those considering opening their own bar, there's probably no better place to stay than Sagittarius B. Although 26,000 light-years away, this interstellar cloud of gas and dust contains more than 1 billion liters of vinyl alcohol. Okay, so it's not really drinkable, but it's a very important organic compound that's essential for the existence of life.
5. Nuclear explosion of the moon
In the late 1950s, with a project labeled the A119 program, the United States decided it was a good idea to launch a nuclear missile to the moon. Why? Apparently, they felt it would give them a place in the space race. Fortunately, however, the plan was never implemented.
6. The Ponzo illusion
Have you ever noticed that when the moon is directly on the horizon, it looks closer and bigger? Known as the Ponzo illusion, your brain inflates the size of the moon to make it look bigger than it actually is. Not convinced? The next time you see an oversized moon, block everything else with your hand and watch it shrink.
7, the moon smells like gunpowder
On leaving the moon, the astronauts on the Apollo mission described lunar dust as smelling like gunpowder and feeling very soft. However, scientists are still not entirely sure why this is, as the composition of the two is extremely different, and lunar dust is mainly composed of small fragments of silica glass.
8. The largest diamond ever made
In 2004, scientists discovered the largest diamond ever created. In fact, it is a collapsing star. It is 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) in diameter and its core is made up of 10 billion trillion carats, about 50 light-years from Earth.
9) Venus has a longer day than it does
Curiously, Venus completed its entire orbit around the Sun before it managed to rotate once around its axis. This means that its day is actually longer than its year.
10. Saturn floats
As big as Saturn, if you put it in a glass of water, it will float up. This is because its density is 0.687 grams per cubic centimeter, while water is famous for 0.998 grams per cubic centimeter. Unfortunately, you need a piece of glass more than 120,000 kilometers (74,564 miles) in diameter to witness this.
11. Cold welding
Whenever two pieces of metal in outer space come into contact with each other, they stick together more or less permanently. Although welding usually requires heat, in this case, the spatial vacuum plays a role, hence the name. You might be wondering, how does the shuttle accomplish anything there? Well, normally, there is a layer of oxidized material on the surface of metals on Earth that prevents this from happening, so the risk of the space shuttle accidentally welding into itself is negligible during a space shuttle mission.
12) The Earth has more than 1 satellite
Well, not really. They are more like lunar enthusiasts, but scientists have found several asteroids that more or less follow The Earth as it moves around the sun.
13. Cosmic garbage
However, the Earth does have more than 8,000 objects orbiting it. Much of it will be classified as "space junk" or debris left over from past spacecraft and missions.
14. Lunar drift
Every year, scientists determine that the moon is about 3.8 centimeters from Earth. As a result, over the course of the last century, the Earth's rotation rate slowed down by about 0.002 seconds per day.
15. The sun's rays on your skin have been around for 30,000 years
While most of us know that it takes 8 minutes for light hitting Earth to pass through 93 million miles between our skin and the sun's surface, did you know that the energy in these rays began their life deep in the Earth's core more than 30,000 years ago? sun? They are formed by intense fusion reactions and have been moving toward the sun's surface for most of these thousands of years.
16, the Big Dipper is not a constellation
While we're not going to break your imagination, we think we should tell you that it's actually a constellation. There are only 88 official constellations in the night sky, and all other constellations, including the Big Dipper, fall into this category. However, it consists of the 7 brightest stars in the constellation Ursa Major (Ursa Major).
17. Constant movement
You stand on a planet that rotates around its axis while rotating around a star that revolves around the center of a galaxy that travels through space. Sounds like enough to make you motion sickness, right? Well, before you take your motion sickness medication, let's look at our next point.
18. Galileo's special theory of relativity
How do you know that the bus you're on is actually moving? If you're sitting on the only stationary object in the known universe while everything else, including the road under the tire, is moving. There is no way to prove what is moving, it's all about your reference frame. For you, the person across the aisle is stationary because your frame of reference is the bus. However, for those watching on the sidewalk, both of you are traveling through traffic at 96.5 km/h because their frame of reference is Earth. As we move on, let's take it a step further...
19. The speed of light
Going back to the bus example, if you shoot an arrow at a target outside the window on the road in front of you, how fast does it move when it hits the bullseye? Basically it'll take the speed of the bus — about 96.5 km/h — plus the speed at which you're shooting an arrow. Now, what if you shined a beam of light on it? Since light travels at 186,000 miles per second, we only need to add 96.5 km/h, is that right? mistake. Scientists have found that the speed at which light travels is the same no matter what. This brings us to the next point...
20. General speed limit
Due to the fact that the above speed of light cannot exceed 186,000 miles per second, nothing can, which is why this is known as the universal speed limit. However, this has some interesting consequences and directly leads to ...
21. Einstein's theory of relativity
Einstein did not become too complicated, but came up with the revolutionary idea that not only movement is relative, but also time. In fact, they are linked. The faster you go, the slower others will think your time has passed. While this is the kind of nonsense scientists are trying to avoid, Einstein accepted the conclusion. Still not convinced? That's why we're going to keep going...
22. Move the clock
Everything we have just talked about is very relevant to modern technology. In fact, clocks in onboard computers and navigation devices must take into account the implications of relativity. For example, if you measure the time elapsed on a fighter pilot's watch, you'll find that it's a few nanoseconds behind your watch.
23, never climb stairs, add a nanosecond to your life
Because gravity increases near the Earth's surface, your acceleration also increases, which is exactly what you think — time slows down. Again, this is very relevant to modern society, because at different heights, clocks move at different "speeds". Also, keep in mind that because the Earth is rotating, people standing near the equator move faster than people at the North Pole. Again, their clocks went even slower.
24. The twin paradox
If you've been keeping up so far, then that won't be too much of a leap forward. The famous twin paradox states that if you put one twin on a spaceship that travels through space at nearly the speed of light and leave the other on Earth, the twins on board the spacecraft will return to Earth in a distinctly younger fashion due to the influence of the theory of relativity. Than his brothers and sisters on Earth.
25. Black holes
At some point, these interstellar vacuum cleaners are actually supermassive stars. When a person dies, it usually blows off its gaseous outer layer, and the core collapses into a very small and dense sphere. For example, imagine trying to pick up a tennis ball that contains the entire mass of the sun. The direct effect of this astronomical high density would be an unusually powerful gravitational field. In order to get rid of any gravitational field, you have to escape faster than you can. On Earth, spacecraft are speeding at about 7 miles per second. On some collapsing stars, however, they must travel more than 186,000 miles per second, which exceeds the universal speed limit, meaning that nothing — not even light — can escape a black hole.