Strange phenomena in space. Space processes and their impact on the earth
Space is full of mysteries and mysteries. It is not without reason that science fiction writers have devoted such a huge number of outstanding works to the space theme. And in space there are many more inexplicable processes than we think. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the most amazing phenomena that take place in outer space.
Everyone knows that a shooting star is a simple meteorite that burns up in the atmosphere. At the same time, many people are unaware of the existence of real shooting hypervelocity stars, which are huge fireballs of gas flying through outer space at a speed of millions of kilometers per hour. One hypothesis for such a phenomenon is as follows: when a binary star is very close to a black hole, one of the stars is absorbed by a massive black hole, and the other begins to move at great speed. Just imagine a huge ball, the size of which is 4 times the size of our sun, flying at great speed in our galaxy.
One of these planets, Gliese 581 c, revolves around a red small star, which is many times smaller than the sun. Its glow is hundreds of times less than that of our sun. The hellish planet is located much closer to its own star than our Earth. Due to its extreme proximity to its star, Gliese 581 c always turns to the star of one of its sides, while the other side, on the contrary, is removed from it. Therefore, a real hell is happening on the planet: one hemisphere resembles a “hot frying pan”, and the second is an icy desert. However, between the two poles there is a small belt where life is likely to exist.
The Castor system includes 3 double systems. Here is the most bright Star This is Pollux. The second brightest is Castor. In addition to them, the system includes two double stars similar to Betelgeuse (class 3 - red and orange stars). The total brightness of the stars in the Castor system is 52.4 times higher than that of our sun. Look at the starry sky at night. Surely you will see these stars.
In recent years, scientists have been actively studying the dust cloud located near the center of the Milky Way. Some are convinced that God is there. If he still exists, then he approached the issue of creating such an object quite creatively. German scientists have proven that a dust cloud called Sagittarius B2 smells like raspberries. This is achieved due to the presence of a huge amount of ethyl formate, which gives a specific smell to forest raspberries, as well as rum.
The planet Gliese 436 b, discovered by scientists in 2004, is no less strange than Gliese 581 c. Its magnitude is almost the same as that of Neptune. The icy planet is located in the constellation Leo at a distance of 33 light years from our Earth. The planet Gliese 436 b is a huge water ball where the temperature is below 300 degrees. Due to the strong gravity of the core, water molecules on the surface of the planet do not evaporate, but the so-called “ice burning” process occurs.
55 Cancri e or the diamond planet is made entirely of real diamonds. It was valued at 26.9 nonillion dollars. Undoubtedly, this is the most expensive object in the galaxy. Once it was just a core in a binary system. But as a result of the influence high temperature(over 1600 degrees Celsius) and pressure, most carbons have become diamonds. The dimensions of 55 Cancri e are twice the size of our Earth, and the mass is as much as 8 times.
The huge Himiko cloud (half the size of the Milky Way) can show us the origins of the primordial galaxy. This object dates back 800 million years since the Big Bang. Previously, the Himiko cloud was thought to be one big galaxy, and in Lately are of the opinion that there are 3 relatively young galaxies.
The largest water reservoir, which has 140 trillion times more water than the entire Earth, is located 20 billion light years from the earth's surface. The water here is in the form of a massive cloud of gas, located next to a huge black hole, constantly spewing out such energy that 1000 trillion suns could produce.
Not so long ago (a couple of years ago), scientists discovered a cosmic-scale electric current of 10 ^ 18 amperes, which is equivalent to about 1 trillion lightning bolts. It is assumed that the strongest discharges originate in a huge black hole located in the center of the galactic system. One of these lightnings, launched by a black hole, is one and a half times the size of our galaxy.
The Large Quasar Group (LQG), consisting of 73 quasars, is one of the largest structures in the entire universe. Its magnitude is 4 billion light years. Scientists still have not been able to understand how such a structure could form. According to cosmological theory, the existence of such a huge group of quasars is simply impossible. LQG undermines the generally accepted cosmological principle, according to which there can be no structure more than 1.2 billion light years.
Ecology
The cosmos is full of bizarre and even scary phenomena, ranging from stars that suck the life out of their own kind to giant black holes that are billions of times larger and more massive than our Sun. Below are the scariest things in outer space.
planet is a ghost
Many astronomers have said that the huge planet Fomalhaut B has sunk into oblivion, but it seems to be alive again.
Back in 2008, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope announced the discovery of a huge planet orbiting the very bright star Fomalhaut, just 25 light years away from Earth. Other researchers later questioned this discovery, saying that scientists had actually detected a giant dust cloud being imaged.
However, according to the latest data from Hubble, the planet is showing up again and again. Other experts are carefully studying the system, surrounding star, so the planet of zombies may be buried more than once before a final verdict is made on this issue.
Zombies are stars
Some stars are literally coming back to life in a brutal and dramatic way. Astronomers classify these zombie stars as Type Ia supernovae, which generate huge and powerful explosions that send the "innards" of stars into the universe.
Type Ia supernovae explode from double systems, which consist of at least one white dwarf - a tiny, superdense star that has ceased to go through the fusion of a nuclear reaction. White dwarfs are "dead", but in this form they cannot remain in a binary system.
They can come back to life, albeit briefly, in a giant explosion along with a supernova, sucking life out of their companion star or by merging with it.
Stars are vampires
Just like the vampires fiction, some stars manage to stay young by sucking the life force out of unfortunate victims. These vampire stars are known as "blue stragglers" and "look" much younger than their neighbors with whom they were formed.
When they explode, the temperature is much higher, and the color is "much bluer." Scientists believe this is the case because they suck great amount hydrogen from neighboring stars.
Giant black holes
Black holes may seem like objects of science fiction - they are extremely dense, and the gravity in them is so strong that not even light is able to escape from them if it approaches them close enough.
But these are very real objects that are quite common throughout the universe. In fact, astronomers believe that supermassive black holes are at the center of most if not all galaxies, including ours. Milky Way. Supermassive black holes are mind-boggling in size. Scientists recently discovered two black holes, each with the mass of 10 billion of our Suns.
Unfathomable cosmic blackness
If you are afraid of the dark, then being in deep space is clearly not for you. It is a place of "extreme blackness", far from the comforting home lights. Outer space is black, according to scientists, because it is empty.
Despite the trillions of stars scattered throughout the cosmos, many molecules are at a huge distance from each other to interact and scatter.
Spiders and witch's brooms
The skies are filled with witches, glowing skulls and all-seeing eyes, in fact you can imagine any object. We see all of these forms in the diffuse collection of glowing gas and dust called nebulae that are scattered throughout the universe.
The visual images that appear before us are examples of a special phenomenon in which the human brain recognizes the forms of random images.
Killer asteroids
The phenomena cited in the previous paragraph may be eerie or take an abstract form, but they do not pose a threat to humanity. What cannot be said about large asteroids that fly at a distance close to the Earth.
Experts say that a 1 kilometer wide asteroid has the power to destroy our planet in a collision. And even an asteroid only 40 meters in size can cause serious damage if it hits locality.
The influence of an asteroid is one of the factors that affects life on Earth. It is likely that 65 million years ago it was an asteroid 10 kilometers in size that destroyed the dinosaurs. Lucky for us, scientists are scanning the sky, and there are ways to redirect dangerous space rocks away from Earth if the danger is detected in time.
active sun
The sun gives us life, but our star is not always so good. Serious storms play out on it from time to time, which can have a potentially devastating effect on radio communications, satellite navigation and the operation of electrical networks.
Recently, such solar flares have been observed especially often, because the sun has entered its especially active phase of the 11-year cycle. The researchers expect that solar Activity will reach its peak in 2013.
April 12 marks the 56th anniversary of the appearance of man in space. Since then, astronauts have regularly told incredible stories that happened to them in space. Strange sounds that cannot propagate in vacuum, inexplicable visions and mysterious objects are present in the reports of many astronauts. Further, the story will go on about what so far there is no unambiguous explanation.
Already a few years after the flight, Yuri Gagarin attended one of the concerts of the popular VIA. Then he admitted that he had already heard similar music, but not on Earth, but during a flight into space.
This fact is all the more strange, since before Gagarin's flight, electronic music did not yet exist in our country, and it was precisely such a melody that the first cosmonaut heard.
Similar sensations were experienced by people who visited space later. For example, Vladislav Volkov spoke about the strange sounds that literally surrounded him during his stay in space.
“The earthly night was flying below. And suddenly from that night came the barking of a dog. And then the crying of the child became distinctly audible! And some voices. It is impossible to explain all this, ”Volkov described the experience in this way.
Sounds followed him almost the entire time of the flight.
American astronaut Gordon Cooper said that, flying over the territory of Tibet, he was able to see houses with surrounding buildings with the naked eye.
Scientists have given the effect the name “ground objects magnification,” but there is no scientific explanation for being able to view something from a distance of 300 kilometers.
A similar phenomenon was experienced by cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastyanov, who said that when flying over Sochi, he was able to see his own two-story house, which caused controversy among opticians.
Candidate of technical and philosophical sciences, test cosmonaut Sergei Krichevsky first heard about inexplicable cosmic visions and sounds from his colleague, who spent half a year on the Mir orbital complex.
When Krichevsky was preparing for his first flight into space, a colleague informed him that while in space, a person can be subject to fantastic daydreams that many astronauts have observed.
Literally, the warning was as follows: “A person undergoes one or more transformations. Transformations at that moment seem to him a natural phenomenon, as if it should be so. Visions of all astronauts are different ...
… One thing is similar: those who have been in such a state determine a certain powerful flow of information coming from outside. None of the astronauts can call it hallucinations - the sensations are too real.
Later, Krichevsky called this phenomenon the "Solaris effect", which was described by the author Stanislav Lemm, whose fantastic work "Solaris" accurately predicted inexplicable cosmic phenomena.
Although there is no definitive scientific answer to the occurrence of such visions, some scientists believe that the occurrence of such unexplained cases is due to exposure to microwave radiation.
In 2003, Yang Liwei, who became the first Chinese astronaut to go into space, also witnessed the unexplainable.
He was on board the Shenzhou 5 when one night on October 16 he heard strange sound outside, like a crack.
According to the astronaut, he had a feeling that someone was knocking on the wall spaceship just like an iron ladle knocking on a tree. Liwei says that the sound did not come from outside, but not from inside the spacecraft either.
Liwei's stories were called into question, since in a vacuum, the propagation of any sound is impossible. But on subsequent Shenzhou missions in space, two other Chinese astronauts heard the same knock.
In 1969, American astronauts Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, and John Young were on the dark side of the moon, quietly removing craters. At that moment, they heard an “otherworldly organized noise” coming from their headset.
“Space Music” went on for one hour. Scientists suggested that the sound arose due to radio interference between spacecraft, but could three experienced astronauts mistake ordinary interference for an alien phenomenon.
May 5, 1981 Hero Soviet Union Pilot-Cosmonaut Major General Vladimir Kovalyonok noticed something inexplicable in the window of the Salyut station.
“Many astronauts have seen phenomena that go beyond the experience of earthlings. For ten years I never spoke of such things. At that time we were over the South African region, moving towards the Indian Ocean. I was just doing some gymnastic exercises when I saw an object in front of me through the porthole, the appearance of which I could not explain ...
… I was looking at this object, and then something happened that is impossible according to the laws of physics. The object had an elliptical shape. From the side, it seemed as if it was spinning in the direction of flight. After that, there was a sort of explosion of golden light…
… Then after one or two seconds there was a second explosion somewhere else and two spheres appeared, golden and very beautiful. After this explosion, I saw white smoke. The two spheres never returned."
In 2005, American astronaut Leroy Chiao, commander of the ISS, led her for six and a half months. One day he was setting up antennas 230 miles above the Earth when he witnessed the inexplicable.
“I saw lights that seemed to line up. I saw them fly, and I thought it looked terribly strange, ”he later said.
Cosmonaut Musa Manarov spent a total of 541 days in space, of which one in 1991 he remembered more than others. On the way to space station"Mir" he managed to film a cigar-shaped UFO on camera.
The video is two minutes long. The astronaut said that this object shone at certain moments and moved in a spiral in space.
Dr. Story Musgrave has six degrees and is also a NASA astronaut. It was he who told a very colorful story about UFOs.
In a 1994 interview, he said: “I saw a snake in space. It is elastic because it had internal waves and it followed us for quite a long period of time. The more you stay in space, the more incredible things you can see there.”
Cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev was tormented by visions in his sleep. During sleep in this position, Tsibliyev behaved extremely restlessly, he screamed, gnashed his teeth, and tossed about.
“I asked Vasily, what’s the matter? It turned out that he had enchanting dreams, which he sometimes took for reality. He could not retell them. He only kept repeating that he had never seen anything like it in his life, ”said a colleague of the ship commander.
Six cosmonauts aboard the ISS, while waiting for the arrival of Soyuz-6, observed translucent figures 10 meters high for 10 minutes, which accompanied the station, and then disappeared.
Nikolai Rukavishnikov observed flashes in near-Earth space during a flight aboard the Soyuz-10 spacecraft.
While resting, he was in a darkened compartment with eyes closed. Suddenly he saw flashes, which at first he took for the signals of a flashing light panel, shining through his eyelids.
However, the board burned with a steady light and its brightness was not sufficient to create the observed effect.
Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin recalled, "There was something there, close enough to us that we could see it."
“During the Apollo 11 mission on its way to the moon, I noticed a light in the porthole of the ship, it seemed that it was moving with us. There were several explanations for this phenomenon, another ship from another country, or it was the panels that came off when we removed the rocket from the lander. But it wasn't all that."
“I feel absolutely convinced that we are face to face with something incomprehensible. What it was I could not classify. Technically, the definition could be one "unidentified"."
James McDivitt made the first manned flight on Gemini 4 on June 3, 1965 and recorded: “I looked out the window and saw a white spherical object against the black sky. He abruptly changed the direction of the flight.
McDivitt also managed to photograph a long metal cylinder. The Air Force command again resorted to a tried and tested trick, announcing that the pilot confused what he saw with the Pegasus-2 satellite.
McDivitt replied: "I report that during my flight I did see what some people call a UFO, namely an unidentified flying object."
At the same time, many fellow astronauts also observed unidentified flying objects during flights.
They say that the archives of Roskosmos describe an unusual story with the crew of the Soyuz-18 spacecraft that happened in April 1975 - it was classified for 20 years. Due to the failure of the carrier rocket, the cabin of the spacecraft was fired from the rocket at an altitude of 195 km and rushed towards the Earth.
The astronauts experienced enormous G-forces during which they heard a "mechanical, like a robot" voice that asked if they wanted to live. They did not have the strength to answer, then the voice said: We will not let you die in order for you to pass on to your own - you need to abandon the conquest of space.
Having landed and climbed out of the capsule, the astronauts began to wait for rescuers. When night fell, they lit a fire. Suddenly they heard a growing whistle and at the same time they saw some kind of luminous object in the sky, hovering right above them.
By the way, the ISS cameras capture unknown space objects with enviable regularity.
Cosmonaut Alexander Serebrov expressed his opinion on this issue: “There, in the depths of the Universe, no one knows what happens to people. The state of the physical is more or less studied, but changes in consciousness are a dark forest. Doctors pretend that a person can be prepared for anything on Earth. In fact, this is absolutely not the case."
Vladimir Vorobyov, Doctor of Medical Sciences and Senior Researcher at the RAMS Center, states the following: “But visions and other inexplicable sensations in space orbit, as a rule, do not torment the astronaut, but give him a kind of pleasure, despite the fact that they cause fear ...
… It is worth considering that there is also a hidden danger in this. It is no secret that, after returning to Earth, most space explorers begin to experience a state of longing for these phenomena and at the same time experience an irresistible, and sometimes painful craving to feel these states again.”
Space is truly a mysterious place. Something extremely unusual is constantly happening in the universe, so it is not surprising that there are many secrets that we long to uncover. Since the earliest days of space exploration, astronauts and ground-based researchers have encountered a range of incredible phenomena. From UFOs to mysterious glows, something inexplicable is constantly observed outside the atmosphere of our planet right in the middle of a boundless vacuum.
Is there intelligent life in the universe other than us? How to explain the strange events that we manage to register with our still insufficiently advanced devices? There are many more questions, but scientists are now only at the beginning of the thorny path of exploring our world. Want to learn about 25 interesting cases from their practice?
25. Knocking in the Chinese spacecraft, the origin of which has not been clarified
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
Taikonaut (member of the Chinese space program) Yang Liwei was the first person to be sent into space by the PRC authorities on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. During his 21-hour flight, the hero astronaut heard a strange noise, as if someone outside was banging on the skin of his ship. The pilot was never able to determine the source of the mysterious sound, and none of the Chinese experts was also able to offer a sufficiently convincing version of the nature of what happened. Some believe that the whole thing was the reaction of the ship to the impact of the space environment. Probably the ship's hull contracted and expanded, making noises that disturbed Liwei.
24 NASA astronaut Story Musgrave saw space eels
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
When the American cosmonaut Story Musgrave was on his next space mission, he allegedly saw some mysterious objects resembling wriggling eels in shape. The astronaut claims to have seen them twice. Experts are sure that it was some kind of space debris, but Musgrave continues to stand his ground - it was something else ...
23. Astronauts who participated in the Apollo program said they saw strange flashes of light in space
Photo: NASA on The Commons / flickr
Many scientists who took part in the flight of the Apollo 11 spacecraft and subsequent launches as part of the same program (the lunar expeditions of Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, 17) claim that they saw strange flashes of light in space. The astronauts stated that the aurora could be seen even when they closed their eyes and that it was white, blue, or yellow. Scientists believe that such visions were caused by contact with cosmic rays ( elementary particles and nuclei of atoms moving with high energies in outer space).
22. American astronauts on board the ISS saw a strange orange glow
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
On her first flight to the ISS, Samantha Cristoforetti, the third female astronaut of the European Space Agency and the first female astronaut of the Italian Space Agency, saw something very strange. As she approached the station, she noticed that the ISS glowed with an unusual blood-orange light. No one has been able to explain this phenomenon.
21. Major Gordon Cooper (Gordon Cooper) claims that in space he saw a strange green ball
As a member of the Mercury space program, Major Gordon Cooper circled the Earth in an orbital capsule. According to the astronaut, during his mission he saw a green sphere, confidently approaching him, and then suddenly disappeared. At the same time, the equipment of the Australian center for long-range space communications registered an unusual signal. Coincidence?
20. NASA Astronauts Deliberately Started a Fire Aboard the ISS
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Of course, the last thing you want to see on board a spaceship as a passenger is a fire. However, NASA decided that there would still be fire in space. In fact, this idea had purely scientific goals - the researchers wanted to observe the behavior of the flame in microgravity. What's the lesson? First, in such unusual conditions, the fire takes the form of a sphere or a drop. Secondly, the flames usually follow the air source from the ventilation systems, and do not just rise up under any circumstances, as is most often the case on Earth. Scientists are going to conduct several more similar experiments to learn more about the nature of the spread of fires, how quickly they can flare up and which materials pose the greatest risk to astronauts in the event of an uncontrolled fire on board.
19. Astronauts flew into space, taking with them an unusual satellite - an earthly bacterium
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
Living organisms in space behave differently than on our planet. Bacteria are no exception in this case. Astronaut Cheryl Nickerson was tasked with taking a salmonella sample into space with him, and the bacterium spent a whopping 11 days in space. Upon returning to Earth, the bacterium was quickly injected into an experimental mouse to test how a salmonella infection that survived the space trip would proceed. Mice with salmonellosis usually die after 7 days, but laboratory animals that were infected with "space" bacteria died 2 days earlier and from a smaller dose. Similar experiments were carried out with other bacteria, but the results were always unpredictable and ambiguous. To date, scientists have not yet figured out how exactly the flight out of the earth's atmosphere and the return back affect various microorganisms.
18. During the flight in the orbit of the moon, the participants of the Apollo 10 mission heard strange music.
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
When the astronauts who flew around the moon were at the farthest point from us, they heard sounds that they later called "the music of outer space." At that moment, they had no connection with the flight center in Houston, and the astronauts were completely cut off from the rest of the world. Upon returning home, none of the mission participants spoke about what had happened, but a few years later, on the recordings of their flight, scientists heard a low-frequency whistling noise of unknown origin ...
17 Neil Armstrong May Have Seen Aliens On The Moon
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Of course, you can doubt this, but they say that Neil Armstrong sent NASA a secret message in which the pioneer claimed that during his legendary mission he met with an extraterrestrial civilization. In a classified report, the astronaut wrote something like this: “They are watching us from reverse side Moon! Armstrong himself denies all this.
16 Mysterious Flashes Of Light From Space That No Astronomer Can Explain
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This phenomenon was discovered in February 2007. At the same time, these mysterious flashes of an unknown nature were called "fast radio bursts", which last only a few milliseconds. Scientists do not yet know what these radio pulses are, or what exactly provokes their occurrence. There are several theories, including the version that these outbreaks are somehow connected with neutron stars, black holes or even aliens.
15. Astronauts who spend a lot of time on a mission get taller.
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One of the interesting effects of a relatively long stay in space is the change in astronaut height. Due to the influence of microgravity, the spine does not experience the usual load and pressure for it, as it happens under the conditions of earthly gravity at home. Therefore, upon returning home, the astronauts, as it were, “stretch” by about 3% of their height. However, over time, the former growth returns, and the reason for this is the same force of attraction.
14. A real cosmic cataclysm occurred at a distance of 10.7 billion light years from Earth
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
While we are floating in our cozy galaxy, something frightening regularly happens in the Universe ... For example, researchers recently recorded a sudden burst of X-ray radiation at a distance of about 10.7 billion light-years from Earth. Astronomers believe that this was some extremely destructive phenomenon that can be compared to a cosmic cataclysm. The energy released by the burst was a thousand times more powerful than the energy that all the stars in our galaxy are capable of emitting! No one yet knows what this event was, or what caused it, and whether we are waiting for any special consequences.
13. Russian cosmonaut saw a mysterious object the size of a finger in the window
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
During the mission on board orbital station Salyut-6 Russian cosmonaut, Colonel General Vladimir Kovalyonok, saw in space an object the size of an ordinary finger. While the astronaut was examining this strange object, trying to understand what it was, the mysterious thing exploded and split into 2 parts. The golden fragments disappeared as soon as they fell into the shadow of the Earth.
12. The Milky Way has a rather bloodthirsty past.
Photo: NASA.gov / commons.wikimedia.org
With the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA scientists have discovered an interesting phenomenon of "galactic cannibalism" from our homeland - the Milky Way. American astronomers came across this phenomenon while they were studying 13 stars at the outer edge of our galaxy's halo to better understand how the Milky Way formed. According to experts, over time, our galaxy grows, and this happens by eating smaller star clusters.
11. During the flight of the reusable spacecraft Atlantis as part of the STS-115 program, the shuttle collided with a UFO
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
During the STS-115 mission to the Atlantis MTKK, a small undefined object. The astronauts even had to carry out a full inspection of the vessel to make sure it was not damaged and could continue its mission. According to experts from NASA, it was just some kind of space debris or a wandering piece of ice. Of course, there were those who are sure that such statements are just a cover, and that something more significant happened in space then.
10. Leroy Chiao saw strange flashes of light in space appearing out of nowhere.
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
During his next mission, American astronaut Leroy Chiao (Leroy Chiao) saw five bright lights in the opposite direction from the Sun. According to the researcher, he was amazed by what he saw to the core, and he could not understand what these luminous objects were, or where they came from. The astronaut claims that the lights flew very quickly and in a certain order, except for the second. Later, scientists from NASA tried to figure out what happened, but they did not go beyond theories. Probably, these were some reflections from the Earth.
9. One very distant quasar has an incredibly huge supply of water
Photo: NASA.gov
Approximately 12 billion light-years from Earth, one of the quasars we have discovered (the active galactic nucleus), according to scientists, has a huge supply of water, the mass of which is supposedly 140 trillion times the mass of water in all the oceans of the Earth. By itself, water in space is not such a rarity. However, in this case, the researchers were amazed at how much water was concentrated in one place.
Photo: Scott Kelly
American astronaut Scott Kelly loves to share his flight experiences on social media. In one of his tweets, the scientist published a photograph of India taken from space. However, the most interesting in this picture was not our planet. In the corner of this photo, users noticed 2 strange white lights. Many immediately considered that this was new evidence of the existence of UFOs and aliens, although experts could not establish the nature of the mysterious objects. It could be a flying saucer, or just a lens flare.
7. After a long stay in space, the eyes of the researchers are deformed.
Photo: www.theguardian.com
Astronauts who have been on a mission for too long (more than a month) sometimes begin to complain about their vision upon returning home. According to a new study, many astronauts experience certain changes in the eyeball due to long-term exposure to microgravity. The deformity also affects the optic nerve and the pituitary gland. This condition is closely related to intracranial hypertension (increased pressure in the cranial cavity).
6. The ISS cameras captured an object that is very reminiscent of the ship "Millennium Falcon"
Photo: Kory Westerhold / flickr
Enthusiast Jadon Beeson is passionate about everything related to space and astronauts. During one of the live broadcasts from the NASA video camera installed on the ISS, the man saw something very strange. According to Beeson, it was a pair of lights illuminating an object whose shape very much reminded him of the fictional Millennium Falcon ship from the famous TV show " star Wars". An enthusiast took a picture of this moment of the broadcast and sent it to NASA experts. There was no explanation from their side.
5. There is still a ninth planet in our solar system
You have probably heard more than once that in 2006 Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet from the honorary ninth planet of the solar system. However, the title of the ninth planet is constantly recalled in the scientific community, and today some researchers are almost sure that in our planetary system once there was this planet 9, but it was thrown out to a distance farther from the Sun long ago. Astronomers believe that it was the size of Neptune, and right now they are working on new data that can prove this claim. The elliptical orbit of this planet is supposedly so large that it takes about 15 thousand years to complete a revolution around the Sun. This is not 365 days for you ...
4. Soviet cosmonaut Musa Manarov captured a mysterious UFO
Photo: UR3IRS / Russian Wikipedia
In March 1991, Soviet cosmonaut Musa Manarov was on board the ISS, and then he managed to capture something very unusual. A strange object has entered the frame white color, and Manarov is still sure that it was not some ordinary space debris.
3. NASA interrupted the live broadcast from space as soon as a UFO hit the frame
Photo: wikipedia.commons.com
On January 15, 2015, during a live broadcast from the ISS, an unidentified object hovering directly above the Earth fell into the field of view of the lens. As soon as the UFO became absolutely distinct, NASA interrupted its broadcast without any explanation. What kind of object it was, and why the Americans tried to hide it - these are the main questions ...
2 Long Space Shuttle Crews Lose Bone Mass
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You may be surprised, but it turns out that even human bones are affected by microgravity. If astronauts are on a mission for too long, their bone mass changes markedly. Bones are a very active organ, and they are constantly developing, which largely depends on the physical activity of their owner (running, walking, or vice versa, a passive lifestyle). The lower the load, the weaker and lighter the bones.
1. A live bacterium was discovered overboard the ISS
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It used to be considered that living organisms are not able to survive in the permafrost space vacuum. However, astronauts recently found out that this is not at all the case, and this was proved by the discovery of a living bacterium, a sample of which was taken directly from the surface of the ISS. In connection with this discovery, some researchers began to claim that we have the first evidence of the existence of life outside the Earth. However, other experts believe that this phenomenon can be explained much more trivially - ascending air currents could pick up these bacteria from upper layers the earth's atmosphere, from where these microorganisms got to outer shell ISS.
Many astronomers have said that the huge planet Fomalhaut B has sunk into oblivion, but it seems to be alive again.In 2008, astronomers using the NASA Hubble Space Telescope announced the discovery of a huge planet that orbits the very bright star Fomalhaut, located at a distance of only 25 light-years from Earth. Other researchers later questioned this discovery, saying that scientists had actually discovered a giant cloud of dust.
However, according to the latest data from Hubble, the planet is showing up again and again. Other experts are carefully studying the system surrounding the star, so the zombie planet may be buried more than once before a final verdict is made on this issue.
2 Zombie Stars
Some stars are literally coming back to life in a brutal and dramatic way. Astronomers classify these zombie stars as Type Ia supernovae, which create huge and powerful explosions that send the "innards" of stars into the universe.
Type Ia supernovae explode from binary systems that consist of at least one white dwarf - a tiny, superdense star that has stopped undergoing nuclear fusion. White dwarfs are "dead", but in this form they cannot remain in the binary system.
They can come back to life, albeit briefly, in a giant explosion along with a supernova, sucking life out of their companion star or by merging with it.
3 Vampire Stars
Just like vampires in fiction, some stars manage to stay young by sucking the life force out of unfortunate victims. These vampire stars are known as "blue stragglers" and "look" much younger than their neighbors with whom they were formed.
When they explode, the temperature is much higher and the color is "much bluer". Scientists believe this is the case because they suck huge amounts of hydrogen from neighboring stars.
4. Giant black holes
Black holes may seem like objects of science fiction - they are extremely dense, and the gravity in them is so strong that not even light is able to escape from them if it approaches close enough.
But these are very real objects that are quite common throughout the universe. In fact, astronomers believe that supermassive black holes are at the center of most (if not all) galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Supermassive black holes are mind-boggling in size.
5 Killer Asteroids
The phenomena cited in the previous paragraph may be eerie or take an abstract form, but they do not pose a threat to humanity. What cannot be said about large asteroids that fly at a distance close to the Earth.
And even an asteroid only 40 meters in size can cause serious harm if it hits a populated area. Probably the influence of the asteroid is one of the factors that changed life on Earth. It is assumed that 65 million years ago, it was the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs. Fortunately, there are ways to redirect dangerous space rocks away from Earth, if, of course, the danger is detected in time.
6. Active sun
The sun gives us life, but our star is not always so good. From time to time, serious storms occur on it, which can have a potentially devastating effect on radio communications, satellite navigation and the operation of electrical networks.
Recently, such solar flares have been observed especially often, because the sun has entered its especially active phase of the 11-year cycle. Researchers expect solar activity to peak in May 2013.
