Welcome to Incredible Curiosities , your way to know the weirdest and most fascinating facts about Physics and Astronomy.
- Biggest star
The biggest star ever discovered, called by scientists “W26”, is 1.500 bigger than our sun.
This Red Giant is located on a cluster 16,000 light - years away from Earth and is now on its death bed. Supermassive stars like W26 have a short lifespan compared to other stars, reaching a“just” a few million of years. They burn their fuel way too fast, and end - up dying in enormous explosions called supernovae, that, releasing thousands of elements to space, are the principle of the creation of new solar systems and planets.
Our own sun will come to an end in about 5 billion years, when it will fade out to a humble White Dwarf.
To have an idea of the size of these galactic monsters, take a look at this comparative graphic:
2. Only 5% of the universe is made of “normal” matter
You probably think that all the universe is made up of the same particles that make up you and me: atoms. But the truth is completely different from what you thought: only 5% of our universe is what we call “normal” matter. Okay… But what is the rest, then?
Scientists estimate that about 70% percent of cosmos is Dark Energy, and other 25% is something else called Dark Matter. Before you think they are the same, they are not. Even though we know very little about both, we know they have different properties. Dark energy is something like an “antigravity”. Instead of joining celestial bodies, it pulls them apart. How do we know that? Simple: the universe is expanding in a faster and faster rate, and that would not be possible without such a force.
Dark Matter, however, is a bit like an invisible and undetectable “weight”, as if objects had an extra mass that did not emit energy nor light. Again, how do we know that? Because, for some processes, like having an even velocity of rotation for all planets and stars of a galaxy ( remember Newton’s Universal Gravitation?), there is the need of much more mass than we can see.3. Neutron Stars
Sometimes, when large stars collapse in upon themselves, they acquire a strange form called neutrons stars. Neutron Stars are the nuclei of these huge stars -- what remained after their cold death.
They are extremely small, but don’t be misleaded by their size: they have approximately 1.5 million time the mass of the Sun, compressed in an area of 20 kilometers. Such concentration of mass leads to an unfathomable density ( concentration of mass)-- what causes proton and electrons to combine, generating neutrons (remember, “Neutron Stars”) -- and a very strong gravitational pull.
Just think: it is like trying to put 1.5 millions Suns in an area like Manhattan!
4. The planet Kepler - 78b has a period of 8.5 hours
An Earth sized, lava planet called Kepler - 78b has an orbital period of only 8.5 hours.
You might recall from your physics class what a period - is. If not, a period is simply the time it takes for something to make a complete rotation or orbit around another object. In common words , it is a year in space.
So, the year on this distant planet lasts only 8.5 hours. Following the same logic, 1 hour on this planet is like 42 days on Earth.
How nice, having your birthday everyday!
5. The Genesis planet
The Genesis Planet is the oldest planet we know, with an incredible age of 13 billion years, only 1 billion years younger than our own universe.
It is 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter and it orbits a pair of stars in a cluster of more than 100,000 of them. It takes a century to complete one full orbit around its stars.
This confirmation that planets have formed very early is extremely important, because it makes us think that there can be many more planets than we imagined -- many new perspective homes for life -- or even intelligent beings!
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