The universe is in no hurry to reveal its secrets, and scientists around the world are racking their brains trying to unravel its mysteries. Galactic cannibalism, mysterious outbursts on Mars and a few more amazing facts related to space …
Galactic cannibalism
It turns out that the law of natural selection successfully operates in the world of space, under which the fittest survives. Galaxies, as scientists have recently discovered, have the property of absorbing each other. The stronger one “eats up” the weaker one, pulling its star clusters towards itself, and as a result becomes even more extensive and powerful. For example, the famous Andromeda Nebula is now actively "devouring" its weaker neighbor.
And after three billion years, it will enter into confrontation with the Milky Way - that is, our galaxy. But who will win remains to be seen. Because the Milky Way itself is actively absorbing its weaker neighbors. Now he is gradually pulling the stars of the small Sagittarius galaxy toward him, from which very soon (by cosmic standards) nothing will remain at all …
By the way, according to scientists, the Andromeda Nebula and the Milky Way are completely identical galaxies, and therefore it is possible that the Andromeda Nebula also has intelligent life.
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Flares on Mars
One of the strangest planets in the solar system is Mars. On December 11, 1896, the English astronomer Illing recorded a mysterious bright flash on the surface of the Red Planet. Information about this appeared in the newspapers, and soon HG Wells wrote his famous novel The War of the Worlds. According to the plots of the novel, the flare on Mars was a projectile fired at the Earth …
After the "War of the Worlds", interest in Mars flared up in society. Amateur astronomers watched the planet for hours, expecting new flares. And thirty years later, the Soviet astronomer Barabashov recorded a mysterious white stripe on the surface of Mars!
And 13 years later, in 1937, a very bright flash was noticed on Mars, which amazed even seasoned space explorers. In 1956, scientists from Alma-Ata discovered a bright blue dot on the Red Planet …
The reasons for the appearance of these points and flares have not yet been explained …
Energetic vacuum
One of the most amazing mysteries of space are quasars, the nature of which has not yet been studied and is the subject of heated debate among scientists. Quasars possess the properties of stars and, at the same time, the properties of gaseous nebulae and release energies many times more than any galaxy …
For many years, scientists have been haunted by another cosmic mystery - gravitational waves, the existence of which was suggested by Albert Einstein back in 1915. Gravitational waves are changes in the space-time continuum. According to theories, they arise when massive cosmic bodies are accelerated. Waves move at the speed of light, and they are so weak that no one has ever recorded them …
An even more surprising phenomenon is the energy of the vacuum. In our view, vacuum is an absolute emptiness, and this emptiness, naturally, cannot emit any energy. But according to physicists, in fact, the vacuum is a very active space - subatomic particles are constantly created and destroyed in it. These particles emit energy that can participate in the processes of cosmic complexity. So, according to the theory of relativity, it is the energy of the cosmic vacuum that is the driving force for the expansion of the Universe …
Black holes and neutrinos
Black holes have long been one of the most mysterious cosmic phenomena. They appear in many science fiction novels, and more than one fictional spaceship disappeared into a black hole, from which no body can escape … And more recently, scientists have discovered black mini-holes. According to the hypotheses of astronomers, the smallest, atom-sized black holes are scattered throughout the universe and have the same properties as their larger counterparts …
The neutrino mystery has not yet been solved either. It is an electrically neutral formation that has practically no mass, but, nevertheless, can penetrate into the most inaccessible places. Thus, neutrinos can easily pass through multi-meter thick layers of the densest materials. In addition, neutrinos are in the air around us and freely penetrate through our body, without causing any harm, however - they are so small. Neutrinos are of cosmic origin - they form inside stars and in supernova explosions. It is possible to detect neutrinos only with the help of special detectors.
Many people, and not only astronomers, are interested in the question of extraterrestrial civilizations that can arise on planets suitable for this. Until the early 1990s, only the planets of the solar system were known. But then more than 190 planets were discovered beyond its borders. Both giant gas worlds and rocky worlds orbiting dull red dwarfs have been found. But such an amazing planet as the Earth has not yet been discovered. However, astronomers are not discouraged - they are confident that new technologies in the 21st century will make it possible to discover planets on which intelligent life exists.
Space twins
Background cosmic radio emission is one of the amazing properties of space. It was first discovered in the 1960s as terrestrial radio noise, but later it turned out that this is "speaking" from space. It turned out that cosmic radio emission permeates the entire surrounding space, however, without causing any harm to the Earth.
Antimatter is a favorite topic in fantastic books. According to some researchers, the particles that make up normal matter have their opposites. "Normal" positively charged particles in antimatter become negatively charged. If a collision of matter and antimatter occurs, then an explosion occurs, in which super-energy is released.
Therefore, in science fiction novels, the movement to galactic distances is carried out using engines based on antimatter.
A special place is occupied by dark matter, which, according to researchers, makes up most of the matter in the Universe. But technology has not yet stepped so far that dark matter can be detected and determined what it actually consists of - and dark matter remains one of the greatest cosmic mysteries.
Not so long ago, another universal mystery was discovered - planmo (from the English "planetary mass object" - an object of planetary mass) … Planemo have the properties of a planet and a star at the same time. Planes are born in the same way as stars, but they are too cold to become. The mass of the planets is comparable to the mass of the giant planets outside the solar system, but they are not solid enough to be counted among the planets.
And quite recently, astronomers outside the solar system first discovered the planetary cosmic twins - two mysterious objects at once located nearby..
The Plandemo twins revolve around each other, not around the star. Researchers believe that both objects originated about a million years ago. The distance between the planets is six times the distance between the Sun and Pluto, and they are about 400 light years distant from Earth.
According to scientists, the existence of such planets casts doubt on modern theories of the origin of planets and stars. But new theories have not yet been invented, and space has not yet revealed its mysteries …
Natalia Trubinovskaya