10 almost incomprehensible scenes of cosmic chaos
The universe is so full of crazy events that it’s hardly noticeable when we read about exploding stars, planet-pinging asteroids, or black holes turning planets into spaghetti. However, the following discoveries are so violent, strange, or beyond the bounds of human experience and understanding as to be almost incomprehensible.
Related: Top 10 Disturbing Secrets About Space Agencies
10 A VERY Bright Quasar
Amazing things discovered in the darkest, most remote regions of space are often not given names worthy of their might. That’s the thing cataloged as J043947.08+163415.7 which is incomprehensibly bright.
It is a quasar, an active black hole that eats itself so furiously that it cannot cope with its appetite. As a result, it shoots a bunch of super-fast, super-hot material and radiation into space. Quasars are exceptionally illuminating, and the one in question, let’s call it J, shines with the brilliance of 600 trillion suns. Yes, trillions with a T.
The host galaxy is small and in the process of formation. That’s how it was at least 12.8 billion years ago, as we see it today, because this discovery goes back almost to the birth of the universe itself. Just as awe-inspiring, the quasar would be invisible if it weren’t for the gravitational magnifying effect of a galaxy before it, which increased the quasar’s brightness “by a factor of 50.” [1]
9 Two Neptunes collide
We don’t have to tell you, but the space is big. Really big, so it’s pretty rare for things to just randomly bump into each other in the great beyond. But scientists think they have seen the afterglow of something incredibly violent: a collision between two planets.
The potential catastrophe occurred in a star system known as ASASSN-21qj, 1,800 light-years away. Scientists think two giant icy planets are colliding, like two Neptunes colliding in psychedelic violence, creating a “hot, glowing mass of material hundreds of times larger than the original planets.”
Here’s a caveat: While random collisions may be very uncommon, such collisions are much more common during the formation stages of planets and (exo)solar systems. During this period, many large, medium and small pieces of rock can run around like bumper cars, leading to monumental crashes. Back home, these same crashes gave us the moon, made Mercury super fat, and knocked Uranus on its side.[2]
8 A star that only exploded halfway through
Like a burst balloon or a dropped bottle of soda, a celestial body has exploded into a rocket. Only it didn’t explode completely: this celestial body only partially went supernova, sending itself through the cosmos at a speed of about 965,606 km/h.
The white dwarf SDSS J1240+6710 is quite puny, as can be seen from its classification. It is only about 40% the mass of the Sun and may have formed a binary star system before flinging itself away from its former companion star.
It is composed of some products of thermonuclear reactions, including oxygen, neon, aluminum, magnesium and aluminum. Yet it lacks the heavier iron group which, unsurprisingly, includes iron and other heavier metals such as nickel.
Due to its strange composition, it tried to become a supernova, but did not have enough fuel. Therefore, it was only able to manage a partial supernova, a never-before-seen event, astronomers say.[3]
7 Small stars break debris disks (giving birth to huge planets)
Small, relatively cool and with a lifespan of trillions of years, red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the universe. In our galaxy, about 66% of the stars are red dwarfs. But with masses reaching about 50% that of the Sun, they are apparently too small to suck up the amount of debris needed to form massive planets.
That seems like a lot of wasted potential from a cosmic landscaping perspective. But astronomers recently discovered that red dwarfs produce planets much faster than anyone thought.
According to supercomputer simulations, the debris disks around red dwarfs sometimes break into multiple pieces. And when they do, they poop out gas giants ten times the size of Jupiter. In just a few thousand years, just a moment in cosmic time.
The study challenges current planet formation theories, arguing that a surprising diversity of planets could become wild alien solar systems around small stars. So even the smallest stars exert an unexpectedly profound influence on the geography of the universe, creating crazy worlds beyond our imagination.[4]
6 The evil black hole hurtling through space
Black holes are black and therefore usually invisible. Sometimes they swallow matter or vomit matter, revealing themselves through destruction. Other times, black holes can calmly and nonchalantly float through space without any obvious sign.
In February 2022, the world went wild with the “first unequivocal discovery of a free-floating black hole.” The hole in question is located about 5,000 light-years away and has a mass of seven suns. When its parent star exploded, it sent the black hole flying through space at a speed of 45 kilometers per second.
Apparently it’s an invisible object that could be the size of a city, which is quite small in cosmic terms. How did scientists even find it? By the small amount by which the starlight bent around its heavy bulk. Oh, and there could be millions of them in our galaxy.
Wow, one more thing to worry about (or be in awe of) in this giant, scary universe. [5]
5 The boiling planet
Planets covered with oceans and crowned by a hydrogen-filled sky (the so-called Hycean planets) may be abundant in the universe. Imagine what crazy events or organisms could unfold on a giant sphere covered by a globe-spanning ocean. Or maybe not, because it’s pretty terrifying.
Either way, astronomers have outdone themselves with the discovery of a planet 70 light-years away. The planet has a radius of twice the radius of Earth and could be covered by a mass of water that boils at an angle of ‘more than 100 degrees’. [Celsius] or more.” The planet, TOI-270 d, has a mass of almost five Earths and is much closer to its star, completing its year in just eleven days.
Other scientists disagree about the ocean, but agree about the awfulness of the planet. Instead of a giant boiling ocean, they claim the planet is actually 4,000 degrees Celsius and covered in a sizzling, extremely dense hydrogen atmosphere. Either way, it captures the imagination (and a lot of fear).[6]
4 The cosmic T-Rex
While it’s true that there are no big galaxies anywhere near ours, the galactic neighborhood is littered with countless little guys. One of these is the Small Magellanic Cloud, which floats about 200,000 light-years from the Milky Way. And next to it is a giant cosmic T-Rex.
It is also known as the youthful star cluster NGC 602, which resembles the fiercest of prehistoric monsters. The tyrannosaurus-shaped nebula looks the way it does, thanks to the shock waves and intense radiation from giant stars. The chaos caused by these young stars causes even more star formation to move away from the center. The background is almost timeless, capturing galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away.
So cosmic chaos does not always destroy; sometimes the shock waves cause the birth of stars by doing things like compressing or fusing available gas.[8]
3 One of the smallest stars packs a punch
You know what they say about small packages. That includes space, where the smallest stars erupt and create some of the deadliest solar flares in the universe. One of these cute little stars is called J0331-27 and is only 8% as massive as the Sun. Yet within a few minutes it unleashed an absurdly intense X-ray flare that was ten times more energetic than anything emitted from our much larger, hotter sun.
J0331-27 is known as an L dwarf. It’s literally as small as a star can be and still be a bona fide star. Its surface temperature is only 2100 K compared to the Sun’s 5800 K. How this particular star could cause such a deadly outburst is still somewhat mysterious.
Normally charged particles deposit energy in a star’s magnetic field. The magnetic lines twist and bend, and when they break or collapse, they release their power in the form of a torch.
But J0331-27 is apparently not hot enough to generate the energy needed for the observed outburst. Somehow it stores its energy and bides its time. Until it unleashes its cosmic fury in a single remarkably violent event, unlike larger stars that gradually emit multiple smaller bursts.[8]
2 The Greatest Explosion Ever Told (or Observed)
Last year, astronomers saw the largest cosmic explosion yet, 70 times brighter than anything we’ve ever seen explode in the universe or anywhere else. It was so bright that it blinded many observation instruments and earned itself the name BOAT: the brightest of all time.
Its real name is GRB 221009A and it is a gamma ray burst, the most violent in space other than the birth of space itself. GRBs form when exceptionally massive stars blow out their tops and become black holes.
The resulting black hole is so overwhelmed by all the stuff it has to swallow that it shoots it back out as two beams from the poles. This thing was so energetic that it looked like “a ton and a half of TNT exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere”… even though it happened 2 billion light years away.
If the rays from a GRB hit us from, say, 100 light-years away, they would vaporize Earth. If they hit us from much greater distances, they would still sterilize our planet. This particular GRB was ten times larger than ever observed and may be as rare as 1 every 10,000 years.[9]
1 The place where iron rains
Hot Jupiters are similar to our own Jupiter, except they are incredibly close to their stars and get mind-bogglingly hot. One step higher we have ultra-hot Jupiters that do what their name suggests.
One of the best known of these hot bodies is WASP-76b, where it is so hot that it rains iron. Metals evaporate here, iron evaporates and molecules are pulled apart into their atoms on the dayside of the planet, which reaches a temperature of 2399 °C. Yes, the dayside!
This planet is so close to its star that it became tidally locked, so one side is eternally pointed toward its star and gets scorched. The other side rests in endless night and cold. And by cold we mean just 2,730°F (1,499°C). The iron rain does not discriminate and is blown to the night side by heavy wind.[10]