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If this video proves anything, it's that the universe is a strange place filled with incredible things. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most mystifying things discovered in space.
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00:00The interstellar visitor entered our solar system from above the plane of the planets,
00:04coming from the direction of the constellation Lyra.
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our
00:09picks for the most mystifying things discovered in space.
00:1720. Hoag's Object
00:19Not everything in space is quite as it seems.
00:22Discovered in 1950, Hoag's Object was originally thought to be something else,
00:26a nebula. But further studies determined it's actually much grander than that.
00:31It's a rare ring galaxy, with an unusually well-structured circular nature.
00:35What's perplexing is that the shapes of the large majority of galaxies as we know them
00:40are either elliptical, irregular, or spiral. But Hoag's Object is a different breed.
00:50While there are other galaxies with a bright, detached ring of stars,
00:54none of them can parallel Hoag's Object in terms of symmetry. Hence,
00:57it's known as the most perfect ring galaxy out there. It's the rarest of the rare.
01:0819. Antimatter
01:08In science fiction movies, finding antimatter on board your spaceship is not good news.
01:14Usually, it means you're moments away from an explosion.
01:18In real life, though, finding antimatter could lead to a Nobel Prize.
01:22In theory, each particle of matter, a fundamental physical aspect of the universe,
01:26has a corresponding antiparticle of antimatter, which has an opposite charge. What makes antimatter
01:32a fascinating phenomenon, though, is that it isn't even close to being as ubiquitous as matter.
01:37An ongoing puzzle in cosmology and particle physics deals with why the Big Bang seemingly
01:43didn't create equal amounts of matter and antimatter. But ultimately, it's a good thing
01:48for us regular matter beings that it didn't. A collision between particles of regular and
01:53antimatter results in mutual annihilation. Everything involved, in effect, destroys itself.
01:59So, although it's out there, it's a blessing that antimatter isn't everywhere.
02:1918. Haumea
02:27Hypothetically, if you were able to pump up a rugby ball to the size of a dwarf planet,
02:31it'd resemble something pretty close to Haumea. The celestial object's unique shape can be
02:36attributed to its rapid rotation. In fact, it's one of the fastest-spinning large objects in our
02:42entire solar system, so much so that a day on Haumea is only around four hours long. However,
02:49Haumea spins so fast that it's actually stretched into an egg-shaped triaxial ellipsoid.
02:56In 2017, scientists added to our knowledge of this dwarf planet's distinctive nature.
03:02After watching Haumea pass in front of a star, they detected that it sports some rings.
03:07This was the first discovery of a ring system for a trans-Neptunian object,
03:11and also the first for a dwarf planet.
03:1417. Infrared Stream
03:20Neutron stars are just plain strange in and of themselves. But in 2018, extended
03:27infrared light surrounding one in particular was something that we'd truly never seen before.
03:32According to research, the object in question belongs to a group of seven neutron stars
03:38that are hotter than they seemingly should be based on astronomical and astrophysical knowledge.
03:44Possible explanations for the infrared light that swirls around it, then,
03:48include there potentially being a sort of dusty disc encircling the star. If not,
03:53then the object could be what's known as a pulsar wind nebula. Whatever the case may be,
03:59this discovery gets added to our ever-growing list of spectacular glowing phenomena in the night sky.
04:0916. Fermi Bubbles
04:12These are no ordinary bubbles. The Fermi Bubbles, which emerge rather symmetrically from below and
04:19above the centre of our Milky Way galaxy, are two celestial regions that emit bright,
04:24bubble-shaped gamma rays. From a groundbreaking observation in 2010,
04:28we learned that this bizarre structure stretches for approximately 50,000 light-years.
04:38The origin of the bubbles isn't fully understood, but it's widely believed that they were caused by
04:47the Sagittarius A star black hole anchoring the centre of the Milky Way. Discovering that the
04:53plane of our galaxy glows in this manner was both a surprising and awesome finding,
04:58reshaping what we thought we knew.
05:0015. Boyajian Star
05:19There are many stars that might be described as unusual or unpredictable,
05:23but Boyajian Star, otherwise known as Tabby's Star, is an especially notable case.
05:28Its extreme short-term fluctuations in brightness are, again, bizarre and almost inexplicable.
05:34From time to time, it dims up to 22%, which is basically unheard of relative to other known stars.
05:40At this time, the star drops in its brightness over 20%. This means that whatever is blocking
05:48its light has an area of over a thousand times the area of our planet Earth. This is truly remarkable.
05:55While various hypotheses as to how this is possible have been put forth,
05:59this on-and-off irregular light show in space has never been fully explained.
06:04Even if there were some kind of complex dust cloud involved, which has been theorised,
06:08its source and persistence is unknown.
06:2414. Mysterious Radio Signals
06:38Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are a bewildering space phenomenon.
06:49They can last a few seconds, but often only appear for milliseconds at a time. Nearly all
06:55of what's been detected have originated from outside of our galaxy, from beyond the realms
07:00of the Milky Way. What makes FRBs even more unusual, though, is the unfathomable amount
07:05of energy that they release. At times, more than what the sun provides across multiple days.
07:11What's more, some have been found to repeat in possible patterns. One of the most peculiar,
07:17known as FRB 121102, regularly bursts back into repetitive life as if on a timer. The origin and
07:24cause for that, and for all FRBs, is up for debate. Their patterns and intensity are a
07:30continued head-scratcher. 13. Oumuamua
07:42It's the first picture taken of Oumuamua from the telescope in Hawaii.
07:46Looking at it, it's quite hard to spot, but it's actually this splodge here.
07:51It's not every day that we have interstellar objects passing through our cosmic neighbourhood,
07:56but that's what Oumuamua, which is generally believed to be a comet, did in 2017. In fact,
08:02this was the first ever confirmed interstellar object detected in the solar system. Estimates
08:08indicate that it had been roaming through our galaxy for hundreds of millions of years before
08:13it journeyed very close to us, moving between Mercury and Venus and cruising around the sun.
08:19Oumuamua's highly elongated shape is another reason why it's captured so much attention.
08:24It started faint, and then it got brighter, fainter, brighter, and fainter again,
08:29as sunlight is reflected off of four sides of an oblong object. It's a strange looking thing,
08:36cigar-like in appearance, and some have even suggested that it looks more artificial
08:41than it does natural. As shown in this artist's impression, Oumuamua is apparently
08:45very long and narrow, with an axis ratio of about 10 to 1.
08:5112. Quasars
08:52Quasars helped shape our universe. In fact, without these most violent of all astrophysical
08:59phenomena, we might not be here to think about them. Generally speaking, these are the brightest
09:05known objects in the universe. A quasar is the glowing core of a galaxy, powered by a mass-
09:11swallowing supermassive black hole. One quasar in particular, known as 3C273, has an estimated
09:18luminosity that is trillions of times that of the Sun. It's also an approximate 100 times brighter
09:25than our entire galaxy is as a whole. In short, what happens here is the supermassive black hole
09:31core at the heart of each quasar gobbles up mass from a surrounding accretion disk of gas and dust.
09:37It's a high-energy meal, though, with the blinding lights representing the incredible result.
09:42Of course, everyone knows that quasars are the most awesome of all. They have everything.
09:48They're like the fire-breathing bat-winged vampire rainbow zebra unicorns of astrophysical phenomena.
09:5411. Magnetars
09:56But that's not their only deadly trick. They might also create the most magnetic
10:02and terrifying beast in the universe, a magnetar.
10:07The most magnetic objects in the cosmos are magnetars, which are a specific form of neutron
10:12star. They form following the collapse of stars that are, or were, significantly larger than our
10:18sun, and remain for the most part a bit of a mystery. What we do know is that, in comparison
10:24to Earth's magnetism, these astrophysical marvels have trillions of times greater magnetic pull.
10:30They're so powerful that the magnetic stress that they generate within themselves is believed to
10:34cause starquakes. What's perhaps even weirder and more unexpected, then,
10:39is that magnetars are also quite small, relatively speaking. In some cases,
10:43they're about 12 miles in diameter. 10. A Giant Water Cloud
11:05Sure, after super-tiny supermagnets, just lots of water could seem a little tame.
11:13But this isn't your typical cloud. This is the oldest and largest collection of H2O in the known
11:19universe, containing roughly 140 trillion times the amount of water than is in Earth's oceans.
11:25This astronomical mass of vapour is estimated to be 12 billion years old, it's roughly 12
11:30billion light-years away from Earth, and it encircles a supermassive black hole and quasar.
11:36It's the aforementioned high energy that's spewing out of the quasar that heats the
11:40water cloud and allows it to take on a vapour form. 9. Pillars of Creation
11:50A new web-space telescope image of the iconic Pillars of Creation, a star factory of sorts,
11:56is visually stunning and could help us better understand how stars form within
12:01clouds of gas and interstellar dust. The name, Pillars of Creation, is actually
12:06specifically the title of a photograph taken by the Hubble telescope in 1995. This stunning image
12:12captures a colossal gas and dust cloud in an elephant trunk formation as it swirls about,
12:18forming new stars, while simultaneously being destroyed by the shockwaves of a neighbouring
12:24supernova. Though it's a breathtaking snapshot of creation within our universe, the sad truth
12:30is that the Pillars of Creation are already gone. They likely ceased to exist some 6 or 7,000 years
12:36ago, but based on the speed of light, we have roughly 1,000 years left to enjoy the sight
12:42before it disappears for good. 8. Cold Stars
12:52You might think that a star, aka a giant ball of fire, couldn't possibly be cold. But,
13:04our universe, yet again, does the seemingly impossible, because cold stars certainly do
13:09exist. Otherwise known as brown dwarfs, they aren't large enough to ever achieve proper fusion,
13:15but they still captivate scientists. Brown dwarfs are sometimes referred to as
13:20failed stars. They are more massive than planets, yet not quite massive enough to fuse atoms in
13:26their cores. Without fusion, they typically have much lower temperatures and are much lower energy,
13:31and therefore are only detected via non-visible infrared light. They're pretty common, though.
13:37In 2014, a small brown dwarf was discovered 7.2 light-years away. It holds the record as the
13:43coldest known brown dwarf, with temperatures falling between negative 54 and 9 degrees
13:48Fahrenheit. And that's chilly, even for these guys. With WISE, we may even find a brown dwarf
13:54closer to us than the closest known star, Proxima Centauri. Now that would be pretty cool news.
14:007. Sagittarius B2 In short, this is one seriously
14:06massive dust cloud. It covers 150 light-years of space. But, honestly, that's far from the
14:12most remarkable thing about this odd space entity. Found 390 light-years from the centre
14:18of the Milky Way, this particularly dense molecular cloud's real claim to fame is a chemical compound
14:25found there. The cloud has amounts of ethyl formate, which is actually the chemical compound
14:30that makes raspberries taste the way they do. It's also what makes rum smell the way it does.
14:40As far as we know, there's no actual rum up there. But Sagittarius B2 still goes down as
14:46one of the more unusually sensory galactic locales. 6. A Hot Ice Planet
15:03If you've ever had the misfortune of a brush with dry ice, you know it burns.
15:07But, roughly 30 light-years from the sun sits a unique exoplanet known as
15:12Galicia 436b, where something similar is seemingly happening all the time. Astronomers
15:18are amazed by its apparently contradictory, burning ice surface. Due to its close proximity
15:24to its own star, this exoplanet's temperatures exceed 800 degrees Fahrenheit. So, considering
15:30water typically evaporates at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, the detected presence of ice here
15:36is puzzling. The leading theory is that what Galicia 436b really has is a remarkably dense
15:43form of water, improbably held together by a combination of the heat plus extreme
15:48gravitational pressure. 5. Hypervelocity Stars
15:57Not everything on our list so far would necessarily qualify as a
16:06terrifying thing from space, but hypervelocity stars do ramp up the scare factor. Broadly,
16:13these are stars that travel extremely quickly. A group of four astrophysicists proved their
16:19existence back in 2005. But, in 2019, their true character shone through when one of them
16:25was found to be moving at a clip of roughly four million miles per hour. Such speeds can perhaps
16:31only be explained by one thing. Hypervelocity stars are somehow ejected from a black hole,
16:37something like a cosmic catapult which, if one were to hit us, would spell instant doom. But,
16:43there's no need to worry. It's said that the chances of a collision with a hypervelocity star
16:48are vanishingly small. 4. Neutron
16:56Stars While our local sun is awesome and all,
16:59it's pretty standard as far as stars go. There are some far more interesting variations out there,
17:04many of which we've already covered, but neutron stars are arguably the most notable of all.
17:10Though they are small, they're incredibly dense. When they're made, neutron stars rotate quickly,
17:16sometimes spinning as fast as 43,000 times per minute. Their conditions ultimately combine so
17:22that they exert a gravitational force some 200 billion times what's felt on Earth.
17:27They're birthed from the remnant cores of huge stars that have previously gone supernova and
17:32collapsed, but from those beginnings, they turn into an almost unparalleled force of nature.
17:433. A Diamond Planet Welcome to 55 Cancri e,
17:49also known as Planet Jansen. Situated more than 40 light-years from Earth,
17:54it is a bit of a trek. But, with a mass roughly eight times that of Earth, and with perhaps one
17:59third of that being carbon, and possibly, probably, made of diamond, it would be one
18:05hell of a payday for whoever could make the trip. If you've got your diamond cutters ready, though,
18:14just keep in mind that temperatures on the surface reach an estimated 3,100 degrees Fahrenheit.
18:21The extreme heat is one of the reasons why it's figured that diamond should have formed here,
18:26but it also means that this coveted gem is likely untouchable. Nevertheless, Jansen's
18:31overall value has been estimated at $26.99 million. That's 26.9 and then 30 zeros.
18:502. Dark Matter How do you make
18:53concentrated dark matter? Oh, that's a good question! Dark matter is proof that our universe
18:58actually is stranger than fiction. As the name suggests, dark matter is a kind of, well, matter.
19:04But it's also not something you can see to believe. Dark matter is invisible, since it doesn't give
19:10off light or reflect it. In fact, it doesn't interact with light at all. Since then, we're
19:15unable to perceive it directly. We monitor it indirectly, via the gravitational effects that
19:21it apparently has on regular matter nearby. Dark matter is something that pulls on things
19:26with the force of its gravity, but can't be detected in any other way. It doesn't shine,
19:31doesn't emit or scatter light. Hence the name, dark matter.
19:35Basically, we know it exists because of clues that show themselves through regular, observable
19:41matter. What's truly crazy, though, is that while normal, observable matter only accounts for
19:46between 4 and 5 percent of the known universe, dark matter makes up 27 percent, and the rest
19:52is dark energy. Unsettling, but also pretty cool.
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20:191. Black Holes
20:34The original, but still the best. And, while mysterious, we do of course know a little about
20:40black holes. Their gravitational force is so powerful that even light is pulled in,
20:45and since light can't escape from them, black holes can't be seen, in the traditional sense.
20:50The outer edge of a black hole is called the event horizon, while its very centre is known
20:54as the singularity. Move past the event horizon and, quite simply, you're not coming out again.
21:00Not even if you're just a tiny particle of light. Not all black holes are created equal, however.
21:12Stellar black holes likely form when large stars collapse, that much is true. But scientists are
21:18still unsure as to how supermassive black holes form, the ones that pin the centre of most major
21:24galaxies. The eternal kicker is that these things operate outside of our normal conceptions of
21:30space and time. And, ultimately, there's nothing weirder than that.
21:43Which space phenomena are you most interested in?
21:46Which do you find the strangest of all? Let us know in the comments.
22:12Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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