From moons that have their own moons to raining glass, here are some of the weirdest things
that scientists believe could exist in outer space.
11.
Doughnut-Shaped Planets
These are technically called toroid planets, and scientists believe they actually exist.
Normal planets, like Earth, are round because gravity pulls inward.
So how could a planet be shaped like a donut??
For a planet to be shaped like a doughnut, there would have to be an equal outward pressure.
This could happen with high enough centrifugal force, but to get the force that strong, the
planet would have to rotate at a blindingly fast rate.
That would mean that a day on a toroid planet would only last for a few hours at the most.
Gravity would be strongest at the poles and weakest at the equator, and the difference
would be drastic – you would literally lose weight just by traveling from the inside to
the outside of the planet.
There would also be drastic differences in temperatures and winds, so there would be
small but powerful storms all the time.
This all means that toroid planets could very well exist, but nobody would really want to
live there!
10.
Moons with Their Own Moons
Scientists believe that there are some moons in the universe that are so massive that they
have moons of their own.
The physics for something like this to happen are so complicated that it’s believed that
submoons (as the moon’s moons are called – they’re also called moonmoons or grandmoons)
could only occur outside of our solar system.
The physics involved in the creation of a submoon are so complicated that they would
happen only rarely.
The process would go like this: a large space body, like a planet, would propel the submoon
toward the moon.
The submoon needs to be small, so it can be captured and held by the gravitational pull
of the moon.
If the submoon is too large, it would break through that hold and smash into the moon
itself.
The gravitational forces of the sun would also come into play, and if the force of the
sun is too great, then the submoon would not be held in orbit and would be lost.
The submoon would be caught in a complicated dance, orbiting the moon, which orbits the
planet, which in turn orbits the sun.
If this situation were to exist in our solar system at all, it would have to be beyond
Neptune, where the sun’s gravitational pull is weaker.
Pretty fun, right??
9.
The Manx Comet
Comets are made of ice, and they have long black tails made of ice and vapor that the
comet sheds in its flight.
Asteroids, meanwhile, are rocky and have no tails.
The Manx Comet is a hybrid of the two – mostly rock, but with enough ice to possibly qualify
as a comet, but not enough ice to form a tail.
Unlike some of the other entries on this list, the Manx Comet has actually been found.
Its official designation is C/2014 S3, and it was first discovered in 2014 using the
Pan-STARRS Telescope in Hawaii!!
The discovery was confirmed by the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany.
Like other comets, it was born in the Oort cloud, which is a cold, giant shell around
the solar system that’s been compared to a giant soap bubble.
The Oort cloud is made of trillions of objects made of ice, or at least significantly covered
with it, and could be as far away as 100,000 times the earth’s distance from the sun.
There’s debate about whether the Manx Comet was a comet that’s somehow lost its tail,
or an asteroid that spent too long in the cold confines of the Oort cloud and picked
up a layer of ice.
The consensus is that it’s a rocky comet, and that it could give hints to the way the
solar system was formed in the first place.
By the way, the comet was named after Manx cats, which don’t have tails.
And now for number 8, but first, if you are new here welcome!
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8.
Planet Nine
Pluto used to be the ninth planet in the solar system, until someone decided that it’s
actually a dwarf planet and kicked it to the curb.
Instead, the ninth planet is one that hasn’t been discovered yet, but which scientists
think could exist on the other side of Neptune.
The evidence that there might be a massive planet on the outer edges of the solar system
comes from five observable phenomena.
First, there are things called trans-Neptunian objects, or eTNOs, whose orbits cluster together.
Second, there are high parihelias (the points in orbit where an object is closest to the
sun) that seem to be outside of Neptune’s influence.
Stay with me now, third, the eTNOs tend to have orbits that are more or less perpendicular
to the orbits of the other planets in the system.
Fourth, there are eTNOs with semi-major axes that are less than 100 AU meaning that their
elliptical orbits are very flat and stretched out.
Last, scientists think that the presence of Planet Nine is hinted at by the tilt of the
Sun’s axis a full six degrees relative to the orbital planes of the other planets.
So pretty good foundation right?
It’s believed that if Planet Nine exists, it’s got a highly elliptical orbit around
the sun, and that it takes 10,000 to 20,000 years to make a full rotation.
It’s probably a gas giant, with an atmosphere or hydrogen and helium, and its mass is more
than likely 10 times the mass of the Earth.
7.
White Holes
Everybody has heard of black holes, but what about white holes?
Black holes are massive objects or areas in space that have powerful gravitational pulls.
It is so strong that not even light can escape.
Philosophically, if there are black holes, there must be something that is the complete
opposite of one.
The other side of the gravitational coin is the black hole’s equal and opposite, the
white hole.
Whereas black holes grab onto things and never let them go, white holes never let things
inside and spew matter and energy outward..
If an object comes into the gravity of a white hole, which is just as strong as that of a
black hole, it gets caught… but it never makes it to the center.
The white hole changes the dimension of time.
The closer an object gets, the slower time will become, and the object will spend eternity
caught in an ever-slowing time stream.
White holes have not been located, but scientists say that their existence is supported by the
Theory of General Relativity.
So what are white holes, anyway?
Are they they other side of a black hole?
Is it what forms when black holes die?
Until scientists actually find one, we won’t ever know for sure.
6.
Vulcanoids
Vulcanoids are small, super-hot asteroids that scientists have hypothesized might exist
between Mercury and the sun.
They believe this because that region of space is stable, and where there are stable regions
in space, there are usually lots of asteroids.
Similar stable regions are the area between Mars and Jupiter, where there is an asteroid
belt, and the area beyond Neptune, where the Kuiper Belt is found.
The theory is that vulcanoids used to crash into Mercury all the time, which created the
pockmarks and craters on the tiny planet’s surface.
The craters, though, are the only direct evidence of vulcanoids that we have.
It’s almost impossible to find vulcanoids using telescopes, since doing so would require
training the optics directly in the direction of the sun.
Like human eyeballs, telescope optics don’t deal well with that kind of direct burning
light, so nobody has been able to prove the existence of vulcanoids… yet.
5.
Synestias
A synestia is a rapidly spinning mass of superheated gas and pulverized rock.
It’s been hypothesized but not actually observed, but physics says that it should
exist.
A synestia is formed when two heavenly bodies – like two planets – slam into one another.
The two original bodies are destroyed by the impact, but then the matter that’s left
spins and creates new worlds.
Scientists believe that this is the way that the Earth and the moon were formed.
In the very distant reaches of time, an early version of our planet collided with a planet
that scientists have named Theia, and the result was a synestia that spat out our Earth
and the moon that orbits her.
4.
Chthonian Planets
There are two types of planets: terrestrial, made up of metals and rocks, and gas giants,
which have no solid part at all.
Astrophysicists also believe that there is a type of planet that starts as one and turns
into the other.
A Chthonian planet is believed to be created when a gas giant gets too close to the sun.
Its gaseous atmosphere burns off, leaving just a small rocky core.
Exactly where the rocky core comes from has not been adequately explained, but scientists
believe this is an entirely possible situation.
They’ve actually located what they think is a Chthonian planet.
They call it Corot 7b, and it’s a blob of molten lava out in space.
Temperatures on the surface of Corot 7b can reach as high was 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit,
which is a little too toasty for life of any kind.
Nobody really knows how many of these Chthonian planets there are, but if there’s one, there
must be more.
3.
Planets Where it Rains Glass
Planet HD 18973b is a beautiful blue planet only 63 lightyears away.
Blue should mean water, right?
Well, not really!
That would be too easy.
The planet is believed to be blue due to silicate clouds.
Scientists haven’t proven this yet, but they hypothesize that because glass is made
of silica or silicon dioxide, rain on Planet HD 189733b is made of molten glass.
They also believe that there are constant winds there blowing at a breezy 5,400 miles
per hour!
That’s seven times the speed of sound, which means that molten glass would be “falling”
horizontally.
Talk about inhospitable!
2.
Gravitational Waves
Gravitational waves are places where the curvature or fabric of space-time is disturbed.
(Space-time is the term for a mathematical model used in physics that combines the three
dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum.)
Waves are sent outward from the source of the disturbance at the speed of light.
These waves are used to collect data about binary star systems, black holes, and supernovae,
and they transport energy as gravitational radiation, which is a kind of radiant energy
like electromagnetic radiation.
It’s believed that gravitational waves can show how the early universe was formed after
the Big Bang.
Gravitational waves are more than just hypothetical.
In 1993, indirect evidence of gravitational waves was observed as a result of the discovery
of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar.
The indirect evidence was joined by actual evidence in 2016, when two black holes were
seen in the process of merging, creating gravitational waves.
Since then, more direct examples of these waves have been found, almost all related
to the merging of black holes.
1.
Dark Matter
Dark matter is hypothetical, but it’s believed to make up almost 85% of the matter in the
universe.
It’s believed to be made up of a not-yet-discovered subatomic particle.
Dark matter doesn’t interact with light, electromagnetic radiation, or any other observable
phenomena, which is where the term ‘dark’ comes from – it’s not visible using any
of the forms of observation that we have available to us today.
Just because we can’t see dark matter doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
It’s believed to exist because the effects of its existence can and are observed.
Based on calculations, most galaxies would fly apart if not for some other form of matter
keeping them together and spinning.
That’s where dark matter comes in.
Other indirect evidence of dark matter can be seen in the way mass reacts when galaxies
collide, from the motion of galaxies inside galaxy clusters, and from observations of
the cosmic microwave background.
Someday, scientists might come up with a way to see dark matter.
Until then, we just have to accept that it exists because all of those observable things
must be reacting to something.
So, in space, truth really is stranger than fiction.
What did you think of these crazy things in space??
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