Balls consisting of burning gas; holes that absorb light and everything else; stars made of diamonds are just a few of the many things that make our universe a scary yet amazing place. There is not even a shadow of doubt that our Universe is a wild place, and throughout the history of its existence, man has tried to comprehend it. Although we have stepped far enough in our understanding of the universe, new discoveries occur every day. Whether it's a cloud of alcohol gas floating in the center of our galaxy, or Einstein's theory of relativity, that's enough to make an astrophysicist nervous. Don't worry, though, this material is pretty cool, so by the time you finish reading these 25 crazy facts about the universe, we're sure you'll start to get nervous too.
25. Milky Way
Look up when the sun goes down tonight. Depending on how dark it is outside, you can see several thousand stars in the sky, all of which make up our own galaxy - the Milky Way. If you look closely, you can see with the naked eye one of several galaxies that is not related to ours.
24. Other galaxies
Photo: flickr.com
If this fact makes you feel small, then it should be, because scientists have calculated that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, none of which you can see without a telescope. Moreover, each of these galaxies contains billions of stars, which means that the total number of stars in the Universe is approaching 10 billion trillion. This is more than grains of sand on Earth.
23. Dark Matter
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All stars, galaxies and black holes in the Universe make up only about 5% of its mass. As crazy as it sounds, the other 95% disappeared without a trace. Scientists have decided to designate this mysterious material "dark matter". Until now, they are not sure what it is and where it is.
22. A cloud of alcohol gas 
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For those of you considering opening your own pub, there is no better place than the Sagittarius B space cloud. Though 26,000 light-years away, this interstellar cloud of gas and dust contains over a billion billion billion liters of vinyl alcohol. It is not entirely suitable for ingestion, but it is a very important organic compound that is critical to the existence of life.
21. Blow up the moon
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In the late 1950s, as part of the so-called Project A119 (Project A119), the United States decided that it would be nice to hit the moon nuclear missile... What for? Obviously, they figured this would give them an edge in the space race. Fortunately, however, the plan never came to fruition.
20. Ponzo Illusion
Photo: Pixabay.com
Have you ever noticed that when the moon is directly on the horizon, it appears much closer and larger? This is an illusion known as the Ponzo illusion. Your brain exaggerates the Moon, so it seems larger than it actually is. Don't believe me? The next time you look at a huge lunar disk, cover everything that surrounds it with your palms, and you will see how it contracts.
19. The moon smells like gunpowder
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After the astronauts of the Apollo missions left the moon, they said that the moon dust is very soft to the touch and smells like gunpowder. Scientists, however, are still not sure why this is so, because moon dust and gunpowder have very different composition, the first consists mainly of small glass fragments of silicon dioxide.
18. The largest diamond
Photo: PublicDomainPictures.net
In 2004, scientists discovered the largest diamond in the world. In fact, it is an exploding star. It reaches 4000 km across, and its core is made of diamond weighing 10 billion trillion trillion carats, and it is located about 50 light-years from Earth.
17. A day on Venus lasts longer than its year 
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Oddly enough, Venus makes a complete revolution around the Sun before it manages to turn around its axis once. This means that the day on it lasts longer than a year.
16. Saturn floats in water
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No matter how big the planet Saturn is, if you put it in a glass of water, it will float. This is possible because the density of Saturn is 0.687 grams per cubic centimeter, while the density of water is 0.998 grams per cubic centimeter. However, to be convinced of this, you will need a glass with a diameter of over 120,000 km.
15. Cold welding
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Whenever two pieces of metal come into contact with each other in space, they almost always stick together. While conventional welding requires heat, in space it is thanks to the vacuum. Then you might be wondering how the space shuttles manage to avoid this? As a rule, metals on Earth are covered with a layer of oxidized material, which prevents "sticking", so during shuttle flights, the risk that they "welded" to each other is negligible.
14. Earth has more than one moon
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In fact this is not true. These moons are more like "wannabes of the moon," but scientists have discovered several asteroids that follow the Earth quite closely as it moves around the sun.
13. Space debris
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More than 8000 different objects revolve around the Earth. Most of them can be classified as "space debris", as well as debris left over from ships and past missions.
12. Lunar drift
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Every year, scientists note that the Moon is moving away from the Earth by 3.8 cm. As a result, every day in the last century, the Earth's rotation has slowed down by about 0.002 seconds.
11. The rays of the sun hitting your skin are 30,000 years old
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While most of us know that light hitting Earth takes 8 minutes to travel 149 million kilometers between our skin and the surface of the Sun, did you know that the energy contained in these rays originated deep in the Sun more than 30,000 years ago ? The beams were formed as a result of a powerful reaction of nuclear fusion and most of this time they made their way to the surface of the Sun.
10 the big bucket is not a constellation
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While we don't want to upset you, we think you need to know this: The Big Dipper is actually an asterism (an easily distinguishable group of stars). There are only 88 official constellations in the night sky, and everything else, including the Big Dipper, falls into this category. It, however, consists of 7 of the most bright stars in the constellation Ursa Major.
9. Constant movement
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You are on a planet that revolves around its axis, revolving around a star that revolves around the center of the galaxy, sweeping through space. Sounds enough to cause motion sickness, right? Before you take your medicine, let's move on to the next point.
8. Galileo's special theory of relativity 
Photo: en.wikipedia.org
So how do you know that the bus you are taking to work is actually moving? What if, instead, you are sitting in the only stationary object in the known universe, and everything around you, including the road under your tires, is moving? The truth is that it is impossible to prove which object is moving and which is stationary. This is all considered in relation to your frame of reference. For you, the person sitting across the aisle from you is stationary because your frame of reference is a bus. However, for the person observing from the sidewalk, you are both moving at a speed of 96.5 km / h, because his frame of reference is earth.
7.Speed of light
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Going back to the bus example, if you shoot an arrow from a window at a target below on the road in front of you, how fast will it move before it hits the target? Basically, at the speed of a bus - about 95 km per hour - plus the speed at which you fired the arrow. What if we shone a ray of light on an arrow? Since light travels at 297,000 km per second, we need to add 95 km per hour to that speed, right? Wrong. Scientists have found that no matter what, light moves at the same speed. Which brings us to our next point ...
6. Speed limit of the Universe 
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Since we noted above that the speed of light cannot exceed 297,000 km per second, nothing can exceed this speed, and that is why this value has become the speed limit of the Universe. However, this fact has some interesting consequences and we pass directly to ...
5. Einstein's theory of relativity
Photo: Pixabay.com
Without complicating it, Einstein essentially put forward the revolutionary idea that not only movement but also time is relative. In fact, they are related. The faster you move, the slower time flows for you, relative to others. While this was a kind of nonsense that scientists were keen to avoid, Einstein accepted this fact and accepted his conclusion. Still not convinced? So we move on to ...
4. Moving clock
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Everything we just talked about is very relevant to modern technologies... In fact, clocks in on-board computers and navigation equipment must take into account the effects of relativity. For example, if you look at the time at wrist watch fighter pilots, you will find that they are several nanoseconds behind your clocks.
3. Add a nanosecond to your life without ever climbing stairs
Photo: pxhere
From the fact that gravity increases near the surface of the Earth, just like acceleration, it follows what you are thinking - time is slowing down. Again, this is very relevant for modern society because on different heights the clock ticks at different "speeds". Also, remember that due to the rotation of the Earth itself, someone at the equator is moving faster than someone at the North Pole. Again, his clock ticks more slowly.
2. The twins paradox
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If you have made it so far, then this will not be a big revelation for you. The famous Twin Paradox states that if you put one twin on a spaceship that travels at the speed of light through space and leave the other on Earth, as a result of the effect of relativity, when it returns to Earth, the twin from the spacecraft will be significantly younger than its Earth brother. ...
1. Black holes 
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At one point, these intergalactic vacuum cleaners were supermassive stars. When a star dies, its gaseous outer layers are blown off, and the core collapses, turning into an extremely small and dense sphere. Imagine, for example, that you are trying to lift a tennis ball that has the same mass as the sun. As a result, such high density an insanely powerful gravitational field appears. To escape from any gravitational field, you must move faster than a speed known as escape speed. On Earth, spaceships develop a speed of about 11 km per second. However, in some of the destroyed stars, they will have to reach speeds greater than 297,000 km per second, which is more than the speed limit of the universe, which means that nothing - not even light - can escape the black hole.
The universe is amazing, no one knows where its boundaries end and begin. It is so great that one has only to guess what secrets it hides in itself. Cosmology provides some answers to questions that may interest the average person.
Surely you are wondering how the universe came to be? How did it all start? Here, even scientists will not be able to give a detailed answer, many adhere to the Big Bang theory. But no one can say for sure what exactly happened in the explosion. It is only known that at birth the Universe was very hot, it was heated to unimaginable temperatures, and now it is gradually cooling down. And the Universe is expanding rather quickly, the distance between galaxies is increasing.
Cosmologists use a light year to measure. As you understand, space is very large and the usual measures of length are very inconvenient to use. The fastest speed in the world is the speed of light in a vacuum. The distance that light travels in a whole year is called a light year. This is a very large value, light days alone are equal to 26 billion kilometers. For you to understand the scale of such a measurement, the light from the Moon to the Earth reaches in just 1, 3 seconds. But scientists went further, they tried to measure our vast Universe. Of course, such calculations are only approximate. Firstly, we are talking about a very large-scale dimension. Second, the universe is constantly expanding. More than 150 billion light years - this is the approximate diameter of the universe.
We talked about the size, now it's worth mentioning a few words about age. Naturally, no one can say the exact age, there are only assumptions. Observations were carried out over old stars, many measurements were made, and some radioactive nuclei were also investigated. With their help, it was possible to calculate these numbers: 13, 7 billion years.
Surely you will be interested in the fact that the universe has a flat shape. Cosmologists are helped in research by relic radiation. She gives answers to many questions. It also contains galaxies, clusters and voids. The universe is not chock full superclusters, there are a lot of voids in it. And if we take into account the fact that it is constantly expanding, then the size of such voids only increases. But at the same time it cools down. Over time, it will cool down so much that the period of the Great Freeze will begin.
The universe has no center because it is in constant motion. But it is moving, that is, not only the Universe is expanding, but also the galaxies that are inside it. There are planets and stars inside galaxies, they also move away from each other, while losing heat.
10 strangest things in the universe Interesting Facts on Sunday evening. The more we look at the sun and stars, the more weirdness we see. Even the space itself is perplexing. Recent studies show that the universe is 150 billion light years across, and the cosmos itself is about 13.7 billion years old. From superfast stars to the nature of things, we've collected ten of the strangest and most mysterious objects outside of our little world especially for you.
10. Moving stars
If you've ever lain on the southern coast of Crimea in August, or just gazed at the night sky dotted with myriads of stars, you've probably seen shooting stars. Although in fact these are meteors, burning (or not burning) in the Earth's atmosphere. Tell your child that the stars don't fall - and destroy his childhood dream. In fact, there are shooting stars. One in a hundred million.
In 2005, astronomers discovered the first "moving star" that was moving through the galaxy at a speed ten times faster than usual - about 900 kilometers per second. We have speculations about what is launching these rare stars into deep space, but not sure. It could be a supernova explosion or a supermassive black hole.
9. Black holes
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Alice thought as she traveled through Wonderland. Astronomers don't know what could be weirder than a black hole. We devoted an entire article to these beauties and the consequences of their collision with the solar system.
Nothing can leave the gravitational boundary of a black hole - the so-called event horizon - neither matter nor light. Astrophysicists think black holes form dying stars with masses of 3-20 suns. At the centers of galaxies, black holes can exceed the mass of the sun by 10,000 or even 18 billion times. And they grow larger, sucking in gas, dust, stars and smaller black holes.
As for medium-sized black holes, their existence, oddly enough, is a big question.
8. Magnetars
The sun revolves around its axis about once every 25 days, gradually distorting the magnetic field. But imagine a dying star, heavier than the sun, collapsing and contracting into a lump of matter only a few tens of kilometers in diameter. As a whirling ballerina spins faster and faster, clasping her hands to her and throwing them out to the sides, this gesture spins the neutron star along with its magnetic field.
Calculations show that such objects have a temporary magnetic field, which is a million billion times stronger than the earth's. This is enough to destroy your credit card at a distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers and roll the atoms into ultra-thin cylinders.
7. Neutrinos
Take a coin out of your pocket and hold it in front of you for a second. And you know what? About 150 billion tiny and practically weightless particles called neutrinos just flew through it as if it didn't exist.
Scientists have found that they are born in stars (living or exploding), nuclear materials and during the Big Bang. Elementary particles have three "flavors" and what is most interesting, they disappear when they please.
And since neutrinos sometimes interact with "normal" matter like water and mineral oil, scientists hope they can use them as a kind of revolutionary telescope to look into the most distant corners of the universe, hidden by dust and gas.
6. Dark matter
If you take all the energy and matter in space, bake into a cake and split it, the result will surprise you.
All galaxies, stars, planets, comets, asteroids, dust, gas and particles make up only 4 percent of the known universe. Most of what we call "matter" - roughly 23 percent of the universe - is invisible to the human eye and instruments.
Scientists can see the gravitational effects of dark matter on stars and galaxies, but are frantically looking for a way to detect it directly with their instruments. They believe that along with neutrinos, there may be more massive elusive particles.
5. Dark energy
Here's what will actually surprise anyone on the planet - and especially scientists - is dark energy. Continuing the pie analogy, dark energy occupies 73 percent of the known universe. It seems to penetrate the entire cosmos and propels galaxies further and further apart at tremendous speeds.
Some cosmologists believe that this expansion over several trillions of years will turn the Milky Way into an "island of the universe" from where other galaxies will not be visible.
Others believe that the rate of growth is so high that it will lead to a "Great Split." In this case, the force of dark energy will overcome gravity and separate the stars from the planets, the forces that hold the particles together, the molecules from these particles, and ultimately the atom and subatomic particles. Fortunately, humanity, most likely, will not see this cataclysm.
4. Planets
Despite the fact that we live on a planet, she and others like them remain one of the most significant mysteries in the Universe. For example, there is no theory that fully explains how planets - especially rocky ones - formed from gas and dust around stars. The fact that most of the planet is hiding under its surface is also not explained. Powerful tools could shed light on the latter, but we can barely study the planets of even our solar system.
The first planet outside our solar system was only discovered in 1999, and it wasn't until 2008 that we got our first decent image of an exoplanet. And recently, scientists have discovered the smallest exoplanet at the moment.
3. Gravity
The force that makes the stars burn, the planets stay together and form orbits, with all this remains one of the most common and weakest in space.
Scientists have calculated almost all the equations and models that describe and predict gravity, but its source outside of matter remains an absolute mystery.
Some believe that incredibly small particles called gravitons are responsible for gravity, but they can be detected in principle - the big question.
Nevertheless, there is an active hunt for large disturbances in the Universe, which are called gravitational waves. If discovered (presumably from the merging of black holes), Albert Einstein's concept that the universe possesses the fabric of space-time will find solid ground.
2. Life
There is plenty of matter and energy in the entire Universe, but only in some places of cosmic diversity there are sufficiently convenient conditions for the emergence of life.
And thanks to constant access to life here on Earth, we understand well what elements and conditions are needed for this strange phenomenon to arise. But the exact recipe for how carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur are converted into the body is unknown.
Scientists are looking for new areas in Solar system where life could flourish (or else it could, for example, under the surface of watery moons), in the hope of developing a convincing theory of the origin of life.
1. Universe
Poincaré dodecahedral space. The supposed shape of the universe.
The source of energy, matter, the Universe itself and the greatest mystery is the Universe itself.
Based on widespread waves of cosmic radiation and other evidence, scientists believe that space was formed after the Big Bang - an inexplicable expansion of energy from a superdense and superhot source.
But a description of the time before this event may be impossible, because time did not exist before the Big Bang. Particle accelerators that collide atoms are trying to shed light on the formation of the universe. And make her a little less weird than she is today.
The universe is so huge that, even knowing the approximate numbers, it is impossible to imagine its size. That is why the Universe never ceases to amaze us with its beauty and new mysteries. Scientists are constantly conducting new research so that we can learn as much as possible about the Universe, and here are 10 of the most amazing and incredible facts.
10. Our bodies are made of stars
Your and any other body in the Universe consists of stars, more precisely, dead stars. At the very beginning, there were only simple elements such as hydrogen and helium. Then these elements combined and formed the first stars, which in turn formed new elements such as iron and gold. Over time, the first stars died, and their explosions formed new elements. Our bodies are made up of almost all the elements that are in the universe - of course, most are elements like hydrogen and oxygen, but we also contain small amounts of elements like gold!
9. When you look at the sky, you are looking into the past.
The stars you see are not stars at all, but the light that they emitted many years ago. Due to the fact that the light takes a certain time to reach us, we see it as it was some time ago. One light year is the distance that light travels in a year. So if you look at a star that is 1000 light years away, you see it as it looked 1000 years ago.
8. Scientists are in search of extraterrestrial life
Scientists are so interested in alien life that they have come up with dozens of different interesting techniques aimed at finding it. For example, the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project, to accelerate the detection of aliens, uses its methods to search for space debris, nearby stars, man-made objects, radio waves and radiation.
7. There are at least 10 billion trillion stars in the universe
Although scientists cannot agree on this issue, the most reliable figure at our disposal is 10 billion trillion. Each star is different in size and can be hundreds of times smaller or larger than our Sun. In addition, each star is surrounded by stellar bodies, such as planets, of which there can be from 4 to 12.
6. Scientists think that we ourselves can be aliens
Some scientists believe that simple microorganisms, such as bacteria, formed on Mars and, as a result of a meteorite, ended up on Earth at an early stage of its formation. From that moment on, we began to evolve into more complex organisms and many years later evolved into the human beings that we are today. It sounds crazy, but at the time, the atmosphere on Mars could have been much more livable. So there is a chance that we and many other species we know are aliens who colonized the Earth.
5. There may be more universes
Yes, our universe can only be one of many others, different from ours. The slightest change in the principles of science can turn other universes into something we never dreamed of. It all depends on the fact whether big Bang, which marked the beginning of our universe, to occur in other places. If so, then the existence of countless other worlds is indeed possible.
4. Black holes die too
Black holes - bodies different sizes that we cannot see. They have an incredible force of attraction that even light cannot overcome, and they feed on the trapped light in order to survive. However, Stephen Hawking argues that if black holes "starve" for too long, they may die over time.
3. The universe is growing
Until the 1920s, people believed that the universe was standing still, but astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that it was expanding. For many years, people have been wrong about the assumption that gravity slows down the universe, but that would only be true if gravity was stronger. Moreover, in 1998, the Hubble telescope recorded that supernovae expanded more slowly in the past than now, which only confirms the Hubble theory.
2. The universe is full of invisible things
It is believed that we see and know only 4% of the Universe, since 96% may be composed of dark matter and dark energy, which we still cannot detect. These unknown entities are supposedly pushing away visible matter, which leads to the expansion of the universe and other possible effects that are not yet known to us.
1. Our ancestors knew more about the Universe than we know now
Our ancestors were much smarter than many people think. Although they did not build skyscrapers or build computers, they knew a lot about plants and herbs, geography and astronomy. Let's not forget about Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Giza, the Nazca Lines, and hundreds of other famous sites that our ancestors supposedly used to observe the sky. They believed that changes in the sky played a large role in their lives, so they made accurate cosmological calculations. The information they received helped them determine when was the best time to grow food, travel to dangerous lands, forge alliances and make important decisions.
The cosmos is huge, and for humans it is also quite creepy.
Firstly, people know very little about what is outside our planet, and secondly, many of what scientists have discovered in space is insanely beautiful, but is beyond understanding and can instantly kill a person. This review contains little-known facts about the Universe that will be of interest to both children and adults.
1. Drainage drains of the Universe
Not only do they die, they disintegrate to the point that they become the veritable drainage sinks of the universe. They suck in literally everything that comes close to them, including other stars.
2. Meteors killed the dinosaurs
In particular, one such potentially dangerous meteor, called 3753 Cruithne, orbits the Sun at almost the same distance as the Earth. It is more than 5 kilometers in diameter and one can only imagine what would happen if it crashed into the Earth. Fortunately, the distance from the meteor to our planet is several million kilometers.
3. "Planet X"
There are whole religions that believe that an invisible planet can crash into the Earth. Apparently, their fears are not entirely unfounded, because NASA is seriously studying the possibility of the existence of the so-called "Planet X".
4. Gold of the Earth
All gold on Earth was originally brought in from space by meteors. Therefore, if someone wears a gold ring, then they can seriously declare that it is of extraterrestrial origin.
5. Cloud "Himiko"
The Himiko Cloud is the largest object in the known universe. Despite its gigantic size (only half the size of our Galaxy), "Himiko" remains a mystery to scientists. This cloud of gas lies 12 billion light-years from Earth, and scientists speculate that it is actually the remnants of a long-formed galaxy.
6. Running water of Mars
Mars is as fascinating as it is intimidating. It is quite possible that it was on Mars that life originated (in the form of microbes), and then, through an asteroid, it was brought to Earth. Scientists already know that Mars in the past was running water, and what other secrets the Red Planet keeps is anyone's guess.
7. The stars are singing
Unfortunately, the frequency of the sound they emit is almost a trillion hertz, so you won't be able to listen to this with the "naked" ear. But stars millions of light-years from Earth do "sing".
8. Diamond icebergs
This is not strange existential poetry, but the assumption of scientists about what the surfaces of Neptune and Uranus look like. They speculate that it may even rain diamonds there.
9. Pinball in space
They are not stationary objects, but rather fast moving. In this case, black holes sometimes collide with other objects, which for some reason they do not absorb, but change the direction of movement. It's like a pinball on a cosmic scale.
Sometimes satellites of different planets are just as interesting as the planets around which they revolve. Take Titan, the moon of Saturn, for example. The gravity on it is so low that if on this satellite a person could attach wings to his hands, he could fly like a bird. At least until he was killed by a rain of gasoline.
11. Zombie Stars
Such stars are called Type Ia supernovae. They are a kind of white dwarfs that are dead (thermonuclear reactions do not take place in them) until they "suck" enough matter from their neighbors, after which they explode and turn into supernovae.
12. Giant storm
Jupiter has a giant storm big enough to hold three Earths. Moreover, this storm has not stopped for many centuries.
