Our Universe is so huge that scale means almost nothing. After all, what is the difference between a distance of six million light years and six billion light years for humans. It is even difficult for an average person to realize such distances. The photographs collected in our review will allow at least a little to imagine how huge and infinite the Universe is.
25. Infinitesimal chances of collision
The probability that a random hydrogen atom on the Sun will collide with another hydrogen atom and thus initiate a nuclear fusion reaction is once every five billion years. But there are so many hydrogen atoms in the core of the Sun that there is no need to worry about the Sun going out for at least a few more billion years.
24. Galactic Maelstrom
This striking image showcases the Whirlpool galaxy, which is 30 million light-years from Earth. The bright spots are likely caused by active black holes.
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23. Galactic Hands
It seems that the galaxy NGC 4258 is a typical spiral galaxy. However, it has a curious feature: two huge spiral arms of gas. They look like giant hands.
22. Gravitational lensing
One of the most unusual things astronomers have learned to do lately is using interstellar matter (such as stars and dark matter) to observe very distant objects. This phenomenon is associated with the deflection of light rays under the influence of strong gravitational fields, due to which objects visually increase. So humans were able to see stars more than 13 billion light-years from Earth through the Abell 1689 galaxy cluster.
21. Galactic cavities
When a black hole erupts (emits shock waves), it forcefully pushes gas outward and creates massive holes known as cavities in the surrounding galaxy. This can be seen in the image of the galaxy NGC 5813.
20. Milky Way
It turns out that you can actually see our own galaxy from inside it. This image clearly shows the Milky Way with the planet Jupiter as a bright ball in the center.
19. Arch of the Milky Way
The next image of the Milky Way Galaxy was taken in Chile. It essentially shows only a small slice of our galaxy visible in the clear night sky.
18. Galactic star formation
This image shows a spiral galaxy undergoing massive star formation (or star formation). The vortices of gas caused by star formation, scientists estimate, can reach 650,000 light years.
17. Sparkling sky
Sometimes space looks more like an extravagant dress from the movie "Hairspray" than its true essence - a combination of gas and dust. A striking example of such brilliance is the galactic cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud.
16. Pillars of Creation
This is perhaps one of the most famous images taken from space (thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope). The Pillars of Creation are the huge accumulations of interstellar gas and dust from which stars are formed. They are located in the Eagle Nebula.
15. The Orion Nebula
Visible without binoculars on cloudless nights, the Orion Nebula is one of the most studied formations in space. Thanks to her, scientists learned about how stars and planets form. To find this cloud of dust and ionized gases, one must look south of Orion's belt.
14. Ejection of a quasar
This quasar, known as SDSS J1106, is the most energetic quasar ever discovered. Quasars are super-bright centers of galaxies that form around giant black holes. After processing the matter accumulated around the holes, quasars throw energy into the surrounding space. The super-powerful ejection SDSS J1106 (100 times the emission of the entire Milky Way) occurred at a distance of about 1000 light-years from Earth.
13. Plasma jets
This is not a photo, but an artist's image, which shows plasma jets emanating from a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy. These jets are caused by the release of energy from the black hole.
12. "Tail" of gas twice as wide as the Milky Way
The stream of hot gas in the Zwicky cluster of galaxies 8338 looks like a tail, which is visible only in the X-ray spectrum. While this appears to be unremarkable in the photo, this gas "tail" is actually twice the width of our Milky Way Galaxy.
11. IDCS 1426
The giant galaxy cluster IDCS 1426 was only discovered in 2012. At its center is a visible blue-white area of gas. IDCS 1426 is located 10 billion light years from Earth, and its mass is about 500 trillion times the mass of the Sun.
10. Messier 60
The bright spot in the center of this image is Messier 60, an elliptical galaxy with a black hole in the center. The galaxy's giant black hole weighs 4.5 billion times the size of the Sun, making it one of the most massive black holes known to humans.
9. Neighborhoods of the solar system
Since the Milky Way has about one trillion stars, it is a fairly large galaxy. This image shows some of the nearby stars in the solar system region.
8. Pale blue dot
A pale blue dot can be seen in the center of the far right brown line. This is our Earth, more precisely, as seen from a distance of 6.5 billion kilometers.
7. Lonely galaxy
Most people think of space as an endless space, objects in which are located far from each other. And while this is true in most cases, most of the interstellar matter is at least close to other interstellar matter. The exception is the galaxy NGC 6503, which is located in a part of the universe free of stars and matter at a distance of about 150 million light years.
6. Exploding Star
At first glance, it looks like a normal fireworks explosion. In fact, this is the explosion of the star GK Perseus.
5. The origin of comets
Most comets entering the inner solar system are likely to come from the Oort cloud, a giant region in which trillions of chunks of solid ice objects float in space beyond the solar system's boundary. The gravitational interaction of the Milky Way and passing stars is believed to "rip" icy objects out of the Oort cloud, "hurling" them into the inner solar system.
4. Relatively low energy production by the Sun
Only the core of the Sun is 25 times larger than on Earth. And it burns at a temperature of 16 million ° C. Despite its similar size and temperature, it generates as much energy per cubic meter as a light bulb.
3. The plant named Sun
Our Sun burns about 620 million tons of hydrogen every second. As a result, 616 million tons of helium, three million tons of energy (heat, light, etc.) and one million tons of charged particles such as protons and electrons are produced.
2. Supermassive black holes
Supermassive black holes are the largest known type of black hole. Their mass can be many billions of times the mass of the Sun. Black holes are found in the center of almost all massive galaxies, and the Milky Way, in the center of which there is a supermassive black hole Sagittarius A *, is no exception.
1. Black hole weighing up to 5000 Suns
Despite the size of our Sun, the mass of even "ordinary" small black holes (including the one located in the center of the Messier 82 galaxy) is 200-5000 times the mass of the Sun.