The year is 1882. A strange beaming light soars across the sky,
so brilliantly vivid it can be seen in broad daylight. Witnessed first not by scientists,
but by ordinary people, it was cause for terror in those with no idea what it could be.
While magnificent and a bit eerie, we know that it was only a comet.
Seeing rare space events from earth can be frightening, especially if we don’t grasp
what’s actually happening. And, as we look deeper into the cosmos, it only gets weirder.
Space is vast. Scientists have only explored a small percentage of its total size,
and we are still light-years away from knowing all that’s out there.
Humanity has made the effort to understand our universe,
but we have also discovered things that seem to break the laws of physics, and stumbled across
events so baffling that astronomers struggle to come up with reasonable explanations.
How can we explain the unexplainable? What’s out there beyond our solar system?
And is there anything out there looking back at us?
You’re watching Matter, and today we’re taking a look at some strange space events
that confused astronomers. Kinman Dwarf Galaxy Star Disappearing
In twenty nineteen, scientists were studying a galaxy that sits about
seventy five million light-years from Earth. This galaxy is called the Kinman
Dwarf galaxy and they found something shocking when they took a closer look.
Like all other galaxies, it contains many stars burning brightly
and various gas and debris in between.
But scientists were focused on one of its stars that they had recorded previously,
or rather, the absence of that one star. In the early two thousands, scientists observed a giant,
late stage blue variable star which burns over two
million times brighter than our own sun within this galaxy.
But when scientists went back and looked for this
star in twenty nineteen, it was gone; there was nothing there.
Not only was the star gone, but there were no signs of what had happened
to it. At first they thought it may have gone supernova,
but there was no evidence of a giant explosion since its last observation.
After scientists had ruled out a supernova they theorized that this star must have had large
outbursts for years after it was first observed.
During these outbursts, the star would have lost a large portion of its mass.
After losing this mass, the star may be dim enough that
it could hide itself behind the dust clouds swirling through the galaxy.
Only time will tell if this star reappears from being hidden or if it really is gone,
but scientists will continue to search for the truth about
what happened to this star. In the Kinman Dwarf Galaxy
75 million light years away, a bright star disappeared between the early 2000s and 2019.
There was no evidence of a supernova so astronomers believe the star had
a series of outbursts during which it lost most of its mass and brightness.
Quasars
There are a lot of violent and high energy events that occur within our universe.
In the nineteen fifties, scientists were looking out into the universe
and recording events more than at any time before.
Using radio telescopes, astronomers picked up sources that were producing large
radio-wave emissions. There was no explanation at the time for what
could be producing these types of radio-waves.
Eventually they were able to discover that these high-energy radio pulses were
originating from the centers of galaxies where super massive black holes are known to reside.
Quasars are formed when enough gas and matter surround the black hole to form an accretion disk.
The matter in the accretion disk falls into the black hole, and as it does it
heats up to incredible temperatures and releases large amounts of radiation.
When enough matter and radiation are present, the quasar can ignite,
sending massive jets of energy from the poles of the supermassive black hole out into space.
Quasars are believed to be one of the most powerful events in the universe
and are thought to have caused some of the biggest explosions ever found in space.
As of this year, astronomers have already identified over seven hundred and fifty
thousand quasars in the observable universe. But more are surely out there.
Quasars are extremely powerful jets of energy shot out of supermassive black holes.
As matter falls into the black hole it forms an accretion disk around the black hole.
This accretion disk heats up to extreme temperatures
and releases large amounts of radiation.
When enough matter and radiation is present,
it is released in huge jets of energy that blast out of the poles of a black hole.
Super Hot Planet
Astronomers have been striving to find as many planets as they can with the current generation
of telescopes. During this search they have found many, and some of them have intrigued and baffled
astronomers who have then worked to explain what was happening on these strange worlds.
One of these planets that seemed to be impossible at first had temperatures
reaching five thousand degrees Kelvin, which is over forty seven hundred degrees celsius.
That’s hotter than eighty percent of all the known stars in the universe.
This planet, named Kelt9-b, is a gas giant nearly twice as large as
the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter.
The extreme temperatures on this planet have a few causes. For one, it orbits extremely close
to its star, so it is constantly blasted by all the light and radiation coming from the star.
It is also locked in a tidal orbit with its star, much like the moon and the Earth,
so the same side is always facing its star.
This makes one side of the planet permanently day while the other is night,
and that comes along with an extreme temperature difference between the two sides.
Astronomers have found a planet that is almost five thousand degrees Celsius which is hotter than
80% of known stars.
The extreme heat is due to the proximity of its orbit to its star as well as being
stuck in a tidal orbit which causes one side to be permanently day.
The Galaxy Orbiting the Milky Way
In two thousand and nine, astronomers picked up some strange ripple effects
on the Milky Way’s disk. It took another six years until twenty fifteen when astronomers
were able to figure out what had been causing this odd phenomenon.
It was another galaxy, a small dwarf one dubbed Galaxy X, orbiting the Milky Way. Even though it
is relatively small, it still exhibits an effect on the Milky Way and slightly distorts its motion.
Astronomers were able to detect this dwarf galaxy thanks to a few of its
extremely bright stars that outshine the dust and other debris distorting it.
Scientists believe that this galaxy must be mostly made up of dark matter
due to how dim Galaxy X is. Dark matter is the mysterious matter that helps bind galaxies
and the larger galaxy clusters together with its gravity.
There is still a lot that is unknown about dark matter,
but scientists know that galaxies can be made up of primarily dark matter. One galaxy discovered in
twenty sixteen was found to contain ninety nine point nine nine percent dark matter.
Maybe by studying Galaxy X astronomers will be able to build a better understanding of
dark matter, what its role is in the universe, and what it is made of.
In 2009 astronomers noticed some ripples along the structure of the Milky Way’s disk.
In 2015 they discovered that this was caused by a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way.
This galaxy, named Galaxy X, is made up primarily of dark matter which is
a mysterious type of matter than scientists know very little about.
Giant Void
While astronomers often look for objects or events happening in space,
sometimes the absence of all these can be just as enthralling. In nineteen eighty eight a region of
space was discovered that was extremely large and had an unusually low density of galaxies.
Named the Giant Void, this region of space spans an enormous area with a diameter of
at least one billion light-years. It is located in the northern galactic
hemisphere and sits one and a half billion light years away from Earth.
There are several galaxy clusters within this void,
but closer observation has let astronomers know that these galactic clusters are very
small because there is virtually no gravitational interaction between them.
There are a number of identified voids throughout the observable
universe and the Giant Void is the second largest among them.
Astronomers still do not know how these voids were formed or what
keeps more galaxies from forming in these regions.
They can see voids like these in the cosmic microwave background radiation
so they know that these voids have existed for a very long time.
But there is no clue as to what caused the massive regions of space to develop devoid of matter.
Another discovery will hopefully help further the understanding of these regions of space,
but until then these voids will continue to remain a mystery to science.
Sometimes astronomers are interested in regions of space that are almost entirely empty.
The Giant Void is one of these regions, it is a region in space over a billion
light years in diameter that is almost completely empty.
There are a few galaxy clusters but they are very small and have
no gravitational effect on each other.
There are a number of the voids throughout the universe and astronomers are not sure
how they are formed or what keeps them so empty.
Strange Sound from Deep in Space
The Voyager one spacecraft was launched in nineteen seventy seven by NASA with the
ambitious goal of studying the outer solar system.
It has traveled through space for over forty four years and
is now about twenty two point five billion kilometers away from Earth.
Recently Voyager one has sent back some interesting data
while it was flying near the outer edge of our solar system. Its sensors picked
up a very faint and monotone hum coming from beyond our solar system.
Astronomers do not know what is creating this humming noise but they believe that
it may originate from “thermally excited” plasma and gas from a distant location.
There is hope that studying this noise further will help scientists learn more
about the border region of our solar system, called the heliopause, and how it interacts
with interstellar space, something that has been a goal of astronomers for some time now.
But this is not the only thing that we have detected coming from far beyond
the boundaries of our solar system. The spacecraft Voyage 1 was launched
in 1977 and is now 22.5 billion kilometers away from Earth.
Recently, it picked up a strange humming noise coming from deep space.
Astronomers believe that this noise originated from “thermally excited”
plasma and or gas from a distant location.
Scientist hope that studying this further can help lead to further understanding of the
border of our solar system called the heliopause and how it interacts with interstellar space.
An Intergalactic Visitor
In two thousand seventeen, astronomers working at the Haleakalā Observatory in Hawaii picked
up a bright speck in their telescope barrelling through the solar system.
This bright speck turned out to not be an ordinary asteroid or a comet flying
around our solar system, but the very first intergalactic visitor from beyond
our solar system that astronomers have detected. The astronomers named
it Oumuamua which translates from Hawaiian to “a messenger from afar arriving first”.
The object was a strange elongated mass that was
flying through the solar system at ninety thousand kilometers an hour.
Measuring its trajectory off of the sun as it whipped around it, astronomers figured out that
it originated from the direction of the star Vega over twenty five light years away from Earth.
Not only was this the first visitor from beyond the solar system,
it also had a number of features that intrigued astronomers even more.
It has an elongated shape with its length measuring ten times its width.
Most elongated space debris that astronomers have found in space are three times as long
as they are wide, so Oumuamua is very elongated by cosmic standards.
In 2017 the very fist visitor from beyond the solar system was found by
astronomers working at an observatory in Hawaii.
Dubbed Oumuamua, this object was flying through our solar system at 90,000 km/hour and astronomers
discovered that it was extremely elongated in regards to other objects found in space.
Space continues to show us more of its wonders as astronomers’ equipment keeps getting better.
The advanced telescopes we have today allow us to look much deeper into the
cosmos than ever before with a wide variety of
other features that allow astronomers to see objects in a wider spectrum of light.
Looking further into the cosmos has always brought about discoveries that seemed to defy
what is currently known about the nature of our universe. Who knows what else astronomers
are going to find when they probe deeper into the depths of space than ever before.
What is your favorite discovery that made science rethink its current beliefs?
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