Bizarre Space Discoveries That Left Astronomers Worried

 

turns out 2020 is the gift that keeps  giving  you could have the wrong type of star  you could have too many giant planets  there are many ways things can go wrong  sure it's been less than stellar being  stuck at home  but we've also made some serious headway  into how our universe was first formed  and how it really works and  we're right there on that thin lucky  line  of existence so what are some of the  bizarre space discoveries that may have  flown  under the radar this year welcome to  fact nominal  today we're uncovering the latest  strange celestial finds  in bizarre space discoveries 2020  10. shine bright like a diamond  astronomers caught sight of a short  gamma-ray burst over 10 times brighter  than their predictions  and it's looking entirely possible that  they stumbled across the first ever  recorded birth  of a magnetar usually the heavy neutron  star produced from the merging neutron  stars collapses in on itself  and forms a black hole in milliseconds  in the case of a magnetar  the heavy neutron star survives as a  rapidly spinning  object with powerful and far-reaching  magnetic fields  it dumps a huge amount of energy into  space around it  as the fields whip around over a  thousand times a second  creating a magnetic wind this incredibly  rare phenomenon  also results in a killer nova the energy  produced in the split second after  magnetar is formed  is substantially more than our sun will  emit over its whole 10 billion year  long life span 9. lord of the rings  this is nothing new trees can be aged by  looking at a cross-sectional piece  and counting the growth rings a layer of  wood formed during a year of annual  growth  it's possible that massive explosions of  energy occurring  thousands of light years away from our  planet have not only left evidence of  their existence in the geology of the  earth's crust  but in the physiology of long-lived  plant life  relatively close supernovas however have  still triggered disruptions in the  global climate on four separate  occasions  over the last forty thousand years there  has been an increase of radioactive  carbon 14 in the growth rings of  fossilized trees  by up to three percent coinciding with  eight  distant supernovas should a nearby milky  way star go supernova  the ionizing radiation produced could  spell doom  for life on earth and even strip away  our atmosphere  turning the earth into a lifeless rock  ace  getting closer the hot topic this year  is the unseen  dark matter and dark energy its very  nature means that although its existence  is theoretically possible  and almost a sure thing the fact that it  doesn't interact with the  electromagnetic spectrum  means we'll never be able to detect it  it's thought now that our only chance is  to observe dark matter is the  gravitational force that exerts on the  visible matter around it  cataclysmic events like merging black  holes emit a staggering amount of energy  in a whole host of unexpected forms  one such emission is an exotic low-mass  field or an elf  this is formed in tandem with  gravitational and electromagnetic waves  traveling close to the speed of light  with very little mass  the feeble signals are detectable with a  quantum sensor networks and may be the  missing piece  of the dark matter puzzle by observing  differences in how energy travels  through space in these various channels  7. feeling hot hot hot a new study has  found that our universe is gradually  warming up  although it's unclear exactly how this  fits into the current model of the  universal expansion following the big  bang  as the universe expands gravity pulls  dark matter and gas  together to form galaxies and clusters  of galaxies  the dragging force is so strong that it  causes the gas to become excited  and heat up over the last 10 billion  years  the mean temperature of gas spread  throughout the universe has increased by  a magnitude  of 10 increasing from 400 000 to over 4  million degrees fahrenheit  hot gases far away have their  temperatures taken by measuring red  shift or how wavelengths of light  shorten the further they are away  comparing how the light of the past  emitted by distant hot gases  is different to gas local on earth in  the present time allows us to map  out a thermal history of the universe 6.  just like a retro arcade on a summer's  evening in 1992  a meteorite completed its 150 million  mile trek across space  in style by slamming into a red chevy  malibu marked up  in new york the poor owner of the now  smash car reported the 30 pound culprit  to the authorities  which was so warm and smelled strongly  of sulfur  30 years of researching this rare  extraterrestrial rock  has led to a new hypothesis about how  asteroids were formed in the juvenile  period  of our solar system it's thought that in  the early days it was a peaceful place  where planets began forming around a  star from the debris field of dust and  gas circling it  now it's thought that it's more closely  resembled the old arcade game asteroids  a place where huge chunks of rock were  flying around everywhere  violently colliding with each other and  being smashed up into tiny pieces before  reassembling into even larger asteroids  over time  5. quick sticks the inner workings of an  exploding supernova have remained a  mystery to scientists  and for good reason if one happened  close enough for an in-depth study it  would also be close enough to wipe us  off the face of the planet  one important fact didn't quite add up  why there are such high amounts of  certain isotopes of heavy elements  ruthenium and molybdenum found on earth  now  a new model based off recent study  indicates that the inner most layers of  a supernova  can create new carbon atoms over 10  times faster  than previously thought carbon is the  matter that makes up life  after all with a stuffed stars process  is called  triple alpha a relatively inefficient  process for creating carbon  there is new evidence showing that  inside a supernova is an abundance of  electrons helping things along  acting as a catalyst for the reactions  creating carbon  and heavier elements with hundreds of  protons and neutrons  four music to my ears when you hear the  term  perfect flow the imagery that comes to  mind is that of a babbling brook  in a peaceful forest in reality it's a  physicist's caller fluid flowing with  the smallest amount of friction and  viscosity possible the laws of quantum  mechanics allow  the existence of a perfectly flowing  fluid and it's thought that this state  of being only  curse in the core of a neutron star or  in the superposition  of the early universe scientists working  at mit have created a perfect fluid in  the lab  in a carefully controlled gas of  elementary particles called formulas  as sound waves travel through this  medium the pitch  at which gas resonates sounds like a  plugged strength of the guitar  the results can be used to estimate  quantum friction in the exotic matter  found in neutron stars  or to develop a way for electrons to  flow in a more perfect way  three sound in the quantum vacuum  researchers from the university of  nottingham have developed a new theory  for observing a quantum vacuum  providing you insights into the behavior  of black holes  currently the unreal effect is a  prediction of quantum physics  where from the point of view of an  accelerating observer empty space will  contain a gas of particles at a  temperature  directly proportional to the  acceleration  in layman's terms waving a thermometer  around  an empty space with no other force  acting on temperature  would record a higher non-zero  temperature the faster moves  the stationary observer would fail to  see this thermal bath  which is a state similar to the hawking  radiation emitted by black holes  the clever team created a 2d cloud of  ultra cold  atoms called a bose einstein condensate  where  sound becomes audible to an accelerated  observer in a silent vacuum  this is an exciting example of how the  theories of quantum physics  and general relativity can at times  overlap  too earthly teleportation the earth just  picked up 11 miles per hour in speed and  got 2 000 light years closer to the  supermassive black hole  at the center of the milky way galaxy  thanks to a new and improved model of  our galaxy  put together from the latest  observational data  don't worry we haven't really teleported  a 15-year long effort to catalog objects  within our nearby vicinity  have allowed scientists to more  accurately locate landmarks within our  portion of space  the earth isn't going to be sucked into  this black hole and 2 000 light years is  not even a drop of sea water in the  cosmic ocean  japanese radio astronomy project veera  completed the lion's share of the  workload required to more accurately  measure space  and celestial bodies around us 1.  missing link  back in 2018 the galaxy ngc  1052 df2 surprised astronomers when on  further inspection  it was missing most of its dark matter  here later the same was observed in df4  there are some natural variants but  generally a galaxy will consist of 5  regular matter and energy 27 dark matter  and 68 dark energy without dark matter  primordial gas lacks the gravitational  pull required to start collapsing  and therefore couldn't form new galaxies  the hubble space telescope had been  exploring the effects of tidal  disruption  a process where the unimaginable  gravitational forces from a neighboring  large galaxy  start to rip and tear apart a smaller  galaxy in the vicinity  the hunger of the larger ngc 1052  has effectively stripped away the dark  matter by the smaller galaxies in its  cluster  causing them to inherently unstable