40 fascinating curiosities of the universe

Clouds of alcohol, diamond planets, heart-stopping temperatures... The Universe has all kinds of phenomena and celestial bodies that we can comment as a curiosity in our dinners and meals relatives.

The Cosmos is such an extremely large place that practically everything is possible in it. And what is not possible here, surely it is possible in the multiverses that some theoretical physicists defend that they exist.

Today we are going to discover 40 curiosities of the universe that counting them at Christmas dinner will make us look like a real Carl Sagan.

• Related article: "12 curiosities about the human mind"

40 amazing curiosities of the universe

The Universe is a huge place. Human beings will probably never know exactly how big it is, much less explore it in depth. Not only because to think that one day we will have all the sufficient technology to travel through the vastness of space is to be very optimistic, but it will not give us time either. The human species will be extinct before we discover what the Universe hides.

Fortunately, you can observe what is in it through telescopes and hypothesize about some of its phenomena. Next we are going to discover 40 curiosities about the cosmos.

1. 93,000,000,000 light-year diameter

The observable Universe is, according to current estimates, a size of 93 billion light years. This means that, taking into account that light travels at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second, it would take 93,000 million years to cross its 10,000,000,000,000 kilometers. It may seem like a long time, and it is, but the time it has existed is much longer, about 13.8 billion years.

2. It takes the Sun 200 million years to complete one revolution of the Milky Way

Our closest star, the Sun, lies in one of the arms of the Milky Way, our spiral-shaped galaxy.

The Sun orbits the Milky Way at a speed of 251 kilometers per second, an amazing speed of course. However, because our galaxy is so tremendously large, about 53,000 light years, the journey we take does our star to complete a lap around the Milky Way takes about 200 million years.

• You may be interested in: "The 14 types of knowledge: what are they?"

3. 13.8 billion years old

The Universe is believed to be 13.8 billion years old, since that number of years ago is believed to have been when the Big Bang occurred. Since then, the Universe has been expanding rapidly and the galaxies have been moving further and further away from each other. This phenomenon is strange because, taking into account the action of gravity, that the galaxies move away can only be explained through the existence of what has been called "dark energy", a force contrary to gravity and that would allow this repulsion.

4. What was there before the Big Bang?

The greatest mystery of the Universe is knowing what was there before it existed. The safest thing is that it will remain a mystery forever, because theoretically and empirically it is impossible to know. The oldest time we can go back is only the trillionth of a trillionth of trillionth of a second after the explosion, the moment in which the Cosmos has had the temperature highest. What happened before that fraction of time will always be a mystery and imagining it will only be an exercise in great creativity.

5. Is flat

Albert Einstein, the famous German physicist, already predicted this with his also famous theory of relativity. This scientist assumed that the universe was not a sphere, but a flat body, something confirmed by observations made with the most modern telescopes. The reason our universe is flat is believed to be due to the trade-off between matter and energy that we know of and dark energy.

6. There are millions of millions of galaxies

Galaxies are between 3,000 and 300,000 light-years across., separated by enormous distances from each other. However, the Universe is so absolutely large that it can host millions upon millions of galaxies. Our Milky Way would not be more than another of the 2,000,000,000,000 galaxies that make up our Universe.

• Related article: "The 30 best phrases of Carl Sagan (universe, life and science)"

7. What we see is not what it is

When we look at the sky, what we see is really what was happening in the past. As the light takes its time to reach us, the image we see of a celestial body such as a star or a galaxy is actually the one you projected a long time ago. Even the celestial bodies closest to us we see them delayed.

For example, we see the Moon as it was 1.2 seconds ago, while we see the Sun as it was 8 minutes ago. The closest star, Proxima Centauri, we see as it was 4.2 years ago. There are stars that, even though we can see them in the sky, have been dead for hundreds of years or even thousands.

8. We can see the birth of the cosmos on a television

When the Big Bang arose, the explosion produced a gigantic echo that continues to resonate throughout the Universe to this day, although in a much weaker way. This echo is called cosmic background radiation and it is possible to capture it with an old TV. Just take one of these devices and stop tuning, making you see the typical screen of snow or a lot of gray dots. 1% of them are caused by interference from the cosmic background radiation with the television antenna.

9. On Venus a year lasts less than a day

Venus is the slowest rotating planet in the Solar System. Its turn around itself goes so slowly that it takes longer to rotate on its axis than to make a complete revolution of the Sun, that is, its day (243 Earth days) is longer than its year (225 Earth days).

10. Pulsars: the scariest fairground attraction

Neutron stars are celestial bodies that rotate very fast. Among them are pulsars, bodies so fast that they would be the most terrifying carnival attraction we could imagine. Its turning speed is 24% of the speed of light, which means that if we "mounted" on one of them our body would revolve at 70,000 kilometers per second.

• You may be interested in: "Astrophobia (fear of the stars): symptoms, causes and treatment"

11. The farthest selfie on Earth

The farthest selfie from Earth was taken before smart phones even existed. In 1990 the Voyager 1 mission, on its journey to the ends of the Solar System, stopped for a moment to take a photo of Earth. It was 6 billion kilometers from the planet, but it still received the instructions from the camera operators and took the image of our planet., which looks like a modest blue dot.

12. We are stardust

Everything we see is made of matter, including ourselves. The iron that circulates in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our bread or the aluminum in our appliances. Electronics arose billions of years ago in the heart of a star and traveled through the Universe to stop at our planet. As Carl Sagan said, we are stardust.

13. A trip at the speed of light would be the last trip

No one can exceed the speed of light. Go at such speed it would cause the hydrogen atoms in our body to hit the walls of the vehicle with an energy close to 10,000 sieverts per second, equivalent to the explosion of thousands of nuclear power plants.

14. The space is full of alcohol

Sagittarius B is a gigantic cloud composed of gas and dust that floats in the interior of the Milky Way, about 26,000 light years from Earth. Astronomers have discovered that this cloud contains about 10 trillion liters of alcohol.

15. And water

As for the liquid element, NASA believes that there is at least 140 trillion times more water in the entire Universe than all of Earth's oceans contain.

16. The coldest place in the Universe

The absolute zero of temperature corresponds to -273.15 ° C. On the Kelvin scale it corresponds to 0 ºK, as this scale was specifically invented so that the absolute absence of energy was represented with the null value. There is nothing colder than those temperatures, it is not possible.

The closest thing in the Universe, or at least that is known for now, is the Boomerang Nebula, an expanding cloud of gas and dust. This celestial body is located about 5,000 light years from Earth, and is believed to have a temperature of -272 ° C, just one degree warmer than absolute zero.

17. The highest temperature ever reached

In the same way that there is an absolute zero of temperature, there is also an absolute hot. This can shock many people, because although at first it makes sense that there is a maximum low temperature, that there is a maximum warm temperature is surprising as one might think that an object can be heated and heated almost to infinite. But the truth is that there is a maximum temperature, and in fact it was reached as soon as the Universe emerged.

It is hypothesized that the highest temperature ever arrived, the "absolute hot", would be the temperature that was reached one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second later. of the Big Bang, at which time all the matter that was to form the Universe was so close together and compressed that its temperature was 141,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ° C. The laws of Physics prevent something from being hotter, this temperature being known as the Planck temperature.

18. Will it come to an end?

There are many theories about what could happen to the Universe, if it will have an end or not. At the moment they are just that, theories, but all of them are chilling if you stop to think about the possibility that everything, absolutely everything in this Universe, could disappear without leaving trail. Some physicists are optimistic and see the Universe as something infinite, although others believe that later or early it will die, although by the time it occurs our species will take millions of years extinct.

There are as many endings proposed for our Universe as there are tastes in an ice cream parlor: cooling down, being eaten by black holes, tearing, contracting, time stopping, with a new Big Bang... Choose your ending favorite.

• Related article: "The 4 main types of science (and their fields of research)"

19. The biggest star

At the moment, UY Scuti is the largest star in the known Universe. This star is located about 9,500 light years from Earth, with a diameter of 2,400 million kilometers. It is so big that trying to surround it with a ship at 900 km / h, it would take 3,000 years to do it. Compared to UY Scuti, the Sun is a rather small star, only 1.4 million kilometers in diameter.

20. Stars the size of a neighborhood

When supermassive stars die, they leave behind a nucleus in which protons and electrons fuse into neutrons, causing them to acquire enormously large densities. These bodies are known as neutron stars.

With diameters of only 10 km, smaller than those of the island of Manhattan, these bodies can weigh up to twice as much as the Sun.. In fact, a piece of these stars only the size of a tablespoon would weigh more than all the cars and trucks on Earth combined.

21. Stars like a golf ball

Another hypothetical type of celestial body is the preon stars, stars of very small sizes that would be formed exclusively of free subatomic particles. Preon stars would have a density 47 million times higher than that of neutron stars. Basically it would be like condensing all the mass of the Sun, a body 1,400,000 kilometers in diameter, into an object the size of a golf ball.

22. A diamond planet

55 Cancri e is a very valuable planet, literally. It is a planet whose composition is believed to be 33% pure diamond. This planet is twice as big as Earth and it is believed that it would have a value of 27 quintillion dollars, that is, 27 followed by 30 zeros. At the moment, it is estimated that on Earth there are about 90 trillion US dollars, or what is the same, 90 followed by 12 zeros.

23. The biggest diamond

Astronomers have discovered what, at the moment, is the largest diamond in the known Universe: BPM 37093. Affectionately named Lucy, in honor of the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" it is about a gigantic crystallized block that travels about 50 light years from us and is almost 50,000 kilometers long.

24. Stars that live 200 billion years

The most abundant stars in the Universe are the red dwarfs which, as their name suggests, are also the smallest stars. Being small in size, together with the low energy they possess, having a surface that is less than 3,800 ºC, makes these stars use up their fuel very slowly..

Because of this, red dwarfs can live up to 200,000 million years. Considering that the history of the Universe is believed to be only 13.8 billion years old, it has not yet passed long enough for such a star to die, not even half the lives of most ancient.

25. A black hole has infinite density

Black holes are formed by collapsing stars 20 times bigger than the Sun. These celestial bodies are one of the greatest mysteries of astrophysics and theoretical physics, and are considered a singularity in space. They have infinite mass and lack volume, something incomprehensible from our experimental physics. Their density is infinite, which is why the gravity they generate is so high that not even light can escape its attraction.

26. The densest subatomic particle in the Universe

The Planck particle is a hypothetical subatomic particle that could be compared to a black hole, but in miniature. This particle would have a mass 13 million quadrillion times that of a proton, but it would be several trillion times smaller.

• Related article: "The 9 postulates of Dalton's atomic theory"

27. Ring-shaped galaxies

There are ring-shaped galaxies in the Universe. These stand out for the fact that they are very strange, not at all common, believing that one in every 1,000 galaxies has this shape. It is hypothesized that these types of galaxies are formed when a larger galaxy passes through them., causing that through the action of gravitational phenomena, the smallest one is deformed taking the shape of a ring.

28. Multiverses

The Multiverse Theory holds that our Universe could be just one of infinite cosmos. There would be Universes of all kinds. They would be identical to ours, advanced or backward in time, others where only a small detail is different and others in which practically nothing is the same.

In case they existed, being in a space-time different from ours, it is believed that it is impossible not only to communicate with them, but also it would be impossible to verify its existence Well, if we existed, we would be separated by literally nothingness, and what that nothing can pass through is absolutely nothing.

29. String theory

Quantum mechanics is the theory that is introduced in the institutes talking about subatomic particles such as neutrons, electrons and protons. The theory of general relativity could be defined as the one that explains what happens in our world.

These two theories are fundamental to physics, but they have the small problem that they do not fit together. For this reason the great efforts of theories physicists have focused on developing a theory that unites the world of the subatomic and the empirically proven.

The result of this is String Theory, which at the moment seems to work as a theory of everything. It defends that subatomic particles are actually strings that vibrate. Depending on their vibration, these strings not only determine the nature of the particles but also transmit the forces.

This theory is not perfect, because if we accept it, we would have to assume the existence of 11 dimensions in our Universe, but for now it is the best there is.

• You may be interested in: "The 30 branches of Chemistry (explained)"

30. Gravity does not fit quantum mechanics

Gravity is what makes quantum mechanics and general relativity not fit together. The other forces can be explained by the existence of subatomic particles, such as electromagnetism with electrons, but not gravity.

It is still a mystery what explains why two bodies of any size attract each other, even when they are thousands of light years apart. String Theory would be that which offers a solution saying that they would be some species of strings those that move the Universe, coiling between them and being able to travel and communicate the celestial objects.

31. The Milky Way and Andromeda will collide

The Milky Way and Andromeda, the closest galaxy to our own, are approaching at a speed of 300 kilometers per second.

Although this speed is extremely high, we do not need to worry yet because Andromeda is at about 2.5 million light years, with which the impact will happen in a long time, in about 5 billion years. Before that happens, there will hardly be remnants of our civilization.

It can also be said that that they will collide is quite relative. Given the distances between stars within galaxies, it is mathematically unlikely, if not impossible, that a collision can occur between them. What will simply happen is that the Milky Way and Andromeda will merge into one larger galaxy.

32. We know very few planets

Astronomers have discovered about 4,300 exoplanets in our galaxy. At first they may seem like a lot, but taking into account that the Milky Way could be home to 100,000 million stars and that most of them have to have at least one planet orbiting around them, there are very few planets that we know of the total.

And if we think that there are many, many more galaxies in our Universe, the total number of planets must be abysmal, a number that our species will surely never know.

33. Other habitable worlds

Of all the exoplanets discovered to date, 55 of those worlds are believed to be potentially habitable.

Taking into account that there are many more planets that have to exist in the Universe, and that a percentage significant must possess the ideal conditions to support life, it is quite probable that we are not alone. Hopefully if there is life on other planets, they will be friendly.

34 Ghost Particles

Neutrinos (not to be confused with neutrons) are a subatomic particle with no electrical charge and such an extremely small mass that they are practically impossible to detect, as if they were ghosts. These particles are so small that they can travel at speeds close to the speed of light., and despite the fact that about 68 million neutrinos pass through every square centimeter of our body, we do not feel them. They go through matter but without interacting with it.

35. The birth of the stars

Nebulae are huge clouds composed of gas and dust, with sizes ranging between 50 and 300 light years.. With the action of gravity and the passage of millions of years, its particles condense to the point where their density and temperature grow more and more. When a temperature of 12 million degrees Celsius is reached, nuclear fusion reactions begin and that is when it becomes a star.

• Related article: "The 7 types of stars (and their characteristics)"

36. Black stars

When we think of stars or the Sun itself, it would seem like an oxymoron to speak of black stars, but the truth is that it is a reality. When the Sun dies, this star will become a white dwarf, which is basically the remains of its nucleus with very high densities.. In fact, the entire mass of the Sun will condense into a sphere the size of Earth.

Theoretical physicists have hypothesized that white dwarfs will eventually cool down, to the point where what remains is a black star, which will no longer have energy and will no longer emit light. It must be said that it is a hypothetical star, since in the entire history of the Universe, not enough time has passed for a white dwarf to die.

37. There is no center

If three things should be clear to us about the Universe, it is that it is huge, is constantly expanding and has a flat shape. Due to these characteristics it is difficult to establish a center as such.

We are talking about something with astronomical sizes, in the literal sense of the expression, and that because of this the concept of center is meaningless here. It is not possible to establish a central point in something that is immense.

38 You can travel to the future, but not to the past

Taking into account the laws of general relativity, the only constant is the speed of light. Everything else will depend on the observer. The greater the speed with which an object or person moves, the less time for that body passes with respect to those who do not move.

This means that It is possible to travel to the future, although at the moment we do not have the necessary technology to make an object move at a high enough speed for this to happen. What does seem impossible, at least considering the laws of physics, are trips to the past.

39. A supernova thousands of light years away would extinguish life on Earth

One of the most violent phenomena in the Universe is supernovae, Starbursts that occur when a massive star, about 8 times the size of the Sun, dies. Its violent outburst can reach temperatures of 3 billion degrees, emitting gamma radiation capable of passing through the entire galaxy. Should this happen, it is possible that all life forms on Earth would die.

40. The death of the Sun

The Sun is a yellow dwarf, so it has a life expectancy of about 10 billion years. Considering that it was formed 4.6 billion years ago, it is still not even half its life. Now, when it dies within 5,500, the Earth will disappear with it, because before the star turns into a white dwarf, it will increase in size, guiding us. Without a doubt, a tragic ending.