Astral Phenomena That Will Blow Your Mind
They said it best in Star Trek – Space Is the Final Frontier. Despite our best efforts at understanding the universe and its incredibly complex mechanics, human comprehension of such an abstract concept remains in its infancy.
The obtuse material – dark matter, antimatter, quantum mechanics, space-time continuums, wormholes, black holes, white holes and general relativity theory is way beyond our pay grade. Yet we are part of the solar system, the Milky Way, despite our heavily limited understanding of the greater universe, or multi-verse.
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” — Albert Einstein.
As the great man said in his quote above, we need to know the truth. With so much uncertainty, it is unlikely that the human mind can even begin comprehending space’s infinitely complex mechanics. Indeed, infinity is an almost impossible concept for the human mind to wrap itself around – yet it is an intractable component of the universe, or is it? Today, we attempt to unravel a few of the many mysteries of deep space.
As we tackle this fascinating subject matter, we realize that the more we know, the less we know. This dichotomy is indeed a paradox on the knowledge spectrum, yet with infinite unknowns, more knowledge takes us nowhere closer to a complete understanding.
With that in mind, we explore a few stunning cosmic phenomena, including solar flares, starbursts, black holes, quasars, meteor showers, and asteroids. Enjoy the space-time continuum!
1. Solar Flares: These are eruptions of plasma from the Sun’s surface that often accompany sunspot activity. Solar flares are classified according to their X-ray brightness in the wavelength range of 1–8 Å. They are bright enough to be observed by satellite-borne detectors and can disrupt radio communication on Earth.
2. Starbursts: A starburst is an intense burst of star formation that can last for several million years. It is characterized by a high star formation rate, typically ten times higher than the average rate in the Milky Way Galaxy. The most famous example is the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which has a star formation rate of more than 200 times that of our galaxy.
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3. Black Holes: A black hole is a region of space-time where gravity is so strong that nothing—not even light—can escape from it. American astronomer John Archibald Wheeler first used the term “black hole” in print in 1963. Black holes are one of the fascinating objects in the universe because they challenge our understanding of gravity and space-time.
4. Wormholes: A wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature that would fundamentally connect two separate points in space-time, theoretically creating a “shortcut” that could reduce travel time and distance between them.
5. Quasars: A quasar is an extremely luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN) resulting from the accretion of matter onto a supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s centre. Quasars are among the brightest and most powerful objects in the universe, emitting up to 1000 X more power than the Milky Way galaxy. This power output makes them some of the most luminous astronomical objects known.
6. Meteor Showers: A meteor shower is a celestial event in which several meteors radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky called the Radiant point. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories.
Most meteor showers are spawned by comets visiting our solar system; as ices within comet nuclei vaporize during heating from sunlight, dust particles are ejected away from comet surfaces at high velocities through jet propulsion mechanisms.
7. Asteroids are small, rocky objects that orbit the Sun. They are leftovers from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago. There are millions of asteroids, but only a few thousand have been given official names. The first asteroid was Ceres, discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801.
