10 INSANE Space Discoveries 2021

 

planets are of course very small from  our perspective here on earth you need a  lot of magnification literally look for  changes in the space-time distance in  our instruments  as the gravitational wave goes by we've  come to learn how the universe works  that there are fundamental physical laws  as humans get better at exploring space  and our technology improves we are able  to observe  more stellar events and crazy cosmic  phenomenon than ever before  so what have eagle eyed scientists found  welcome to fact nominal and today we'll  be delving deep into the cosmos in  10 insane space discoveries in 2021  one new super earth in the search for  new exoplanets a team of scientists came  across  gj 740b an enormous rocky planet three  times the mass of earth which orbits a  small red dwarf star  completing its orbit in just under two  and a half days  the planet lies 36 light years on earth  which is an  absolutely insane distance in human  terms but is actually very close on  cosmic scale  its relatively close distance to earth  makes gj 740b  a promising candidate for more in-depth  observation once we develop more wide  diameter telescopes which can peer  deeper into the cosmos  its proximity to earth also opens up the  possibility of an interstellar adventure  there in the distant future  2. harnessing energy from black holes  black holes are absolute behemoths able  to grow to a mass  billions of times greater than our sun  and consume entire solar systems for  breakfast  such intense objects have the potential  to power human civilization for millions  of years  but finding a theoretical way to extract  energy from black holes without falling  into one  has been difficult to say the least  recently a breakthrough was made where  two physicists  determined that we could safely and  efficiently extract  energy from black holes by breaking and  reforming magnetic field lines at the  event horizon  the point where not even light can  escape a black hole  while this method of energy generation  is still just a theory it would have  significant consequences for our species  if we could start using it three space  dust falling to earth  space isn't as empty as it may appear as  our planet traverses  even seemingly clear parts of space it  comes into contact with space dust which  burns up in the upper layers of the  atmosphere and leaves stunning streaks  of light across the sky  with the particles making up the space  dust remaining on earth  for years we had no idea how much space  dust was falling to earth but thanks to  a 20-year study  we now know that a whopping 5 200 tons  of dust is added to the planet every  single year  this insane fact gives you no excuse for  not being able to see shooting stars  more often  4. length of days on venus usually  calculating the day length of a planet  is a trivial process we've been able to  do it for not only the planets in our  solar system  but also planets orbiting other stars  that are light years away  even though we can do this scientists  have never been able to consistently  calculate the day length of venus  which is the closest planet to earth why  is this  did they just get bored and give up not  quite  as it turns out the day length of venus  varies by up to 20 minutes  as a result of its fast-moving clouds  which alter the spin of the planet  this discovery means we can finally  explain why  scientists have never been able to agree  on the amount of time for a day on venus  number five new infant galaxy  astronomers have recently found a tiny  galaxy just one percent the size of the  milky way  which is in the early stages of its  evolution most  galaxies that are this small are hard to  find since they don't emit a whole lot  of light but scientists were able to  find this galaxy through use of  gravitational lensing  which is where large objects such as  galaxies  bend and magnify the light coming from  objects behind them  which allows us to study them more  closely the discovery of this galaxy  will allow researchers to find out more  about how young galaxies develop  which will certainly be useful in  determining how our own galaxy has  evolved  number six oxygen on mars one of the  main issues with trying to get humans to  live on mars is that we need an  abundance of oxygen to survive  and the red planet barely has an  atmosphere let alone enough oxygen to  sustain a human  things have changed though thanks to  nasa's perseverance which  has now successfully converted carbon  dioxide  from the thin martian atmosphere into  enough oxygen to sustain a human for 10  minutes  this might not seem very impressive but  it shows that we can successfully  produce oxygen on mars  number seven moving black hole for some  time now it has been predicted  that black holes could drift through the  cosmos but we've been  unsuccessful in finding one of these  moving behemoths  until now researchers were able to use  advanced techniques  to determine the speed of black holes  compared to the speed of the galaxies  they reside in  a difference in speed would indicate  that the black hole is moving  the team conducted these measurements  for 10 black holes and managed to find  that one black hole 230 million light  years away  was moving at 110 000 miles per hour  compared to its galaxy this insane  discovery  adds such much needed character to these  huge objects  number 8 the core of stars is not fixed  for some time we've been able to measure  the mass of stars across the cosmos but  what determined the mass of a star  has remained a mystery some thought that  a larger core  caused stars to be larger and heavier  while others thought that all stars  initially had a core of similar size and  that they would grow  if there was readily available gas to be  used as fuel  this mystery was finally put to rest  this year when a team studied the  formation of stars in a huge cloud of  gas  and eventually concluded that all  stellar cores had a similar mass at  birth  and grow as they consume more mass with  this study  the mystery of the mass of stars can be  put to rest  number 9 x-rays on uranus  earlier this year researchers were able  to detect x-rays coming from uranus for  the first time  this was to be expected since the sun  produces plenty of x-rays  that can be reflected by large celestial  bodies  however another source of x-rays was  also detected  which hasn't been explained yet this  discovery could lead us to new  information about our distant celestial  neighbor  number 10 enormous solar flare  some researchers were observing the  closest star to our sun  proxima centauri when suddenly it became  14  000 times brighter the star had just  emitted a powerful solar flare  more than 100 times powerful than  anything ever emitted from our sun  which is lucky since a similar event in  our solar system would not be great for  us fragile humans  luckily this spectacular event took  place at a safe distance away  which discovery impressed you the most  what do you think we'll find in the  future  let us know in the comments below