Do you know about the existence of things like stars inside stars, planets made of diamonds, atomic-sized black holes, and even white holes? In today's article, I'm going to tell you some mind-blowing information about the big starry universe.
Heaviest Thing in the Solar System
The Sun is still the heaviest thing in our Solar system, although more and more of its non-renewable fuel sources are turning it into energy. The Sun holds 99.85% of the entire mass of the solar system in its own hands. By comparison, all 8 planets account for about 0.135%.
However, wasn't the Sun made of gases like hydrogen and helium? How can light fumes be heavier than solids? Well, the pressure that builds up this ball of hot gas condenses most of the gas's particles together at its center. Although the core makes up only two percent of its entire volume, it has about 15 times the density of lead. This means that it makes up half of the sun's total mass. In other words, the Sun is only 109 times the diameter of the Earth, while it is about 333 thousand times heavier.
Fascinating Supernovas
Although they may seem eternal, stars also have a lifespan, and when they die, they dissipate in a real explosion. These astronomical bursts are also called supernovas. Supernovas include massive stars that are at least 8 times the mass of our sun and consume huge amounts of hydrogen in their cores. The energy this produces creates an intense, outward pressure under the influence of the star's own massive gravity. But eventually gravity wins over the pressure and the star collapses into itself. In fact, these events happen so suddenly that you can see something a million times the mass of the earth collapse in just 15 seconds. Stars don't always explode so spherically. For example, let's take a look at Supernova 1987A, which is about 160 thousand light-years from Earth. In the 1987 eruption, researchers expected the explosion to be spherical, but were surprised to see a faster and more powerful explosion in different directions. This made the resulting starburst look like a bow tie on one side and Sauron's eye on the other.
Strange Black Holes
While some supernova remnants may seem otherworldly, others can leave something truly nightmarish in their wake. If the stellar cores left over from massive exploded stars no longer have the external force of heat pressure opposing gravity, then the core collapses on itself. This impossible sounding event is what we know as a black hole. But this is not the same as watching a building collapse. Because as the star collapses into itself, its rapidly shrinking surface approaches a point called the event horizon. The speed required to escape the gravity of these collapsing stars is the threshold at which the speed of light is exceeded. meaning that anything traveling below 186000 miles per second is dragged and consumed by this ever-collapsing gravity well. time around him slows down fast. So this means that when it collapses forever, it's also an eternally frozen object. So what exactly does it look like? You've probably seen movies where black holes are depicted as planet-sized voids, but what if I told you they could be much, much bigger than that?
The black hole known as TON 618, located in the Abell 85 cluster, 10.4 billion light-years away, is calculated to have a mass 66 billion times greater than our sun. Great mass brings with it great size. So this means that the black hole has a diameter of over 242 billion miles, which is 2606 times the distance from the earth to the sun. No wonder this black hole falls into the ultramassive black hole category, but if this obscure scale has confused you, shift your attention to the other end of the size spectrum. Unlike stars, there is no limit to how small black holes can be. However, scientists believe that a black hole could be as small as a single atom, the smallest unit of ordinary matter that exists, but don't let the size fool you. Even at this size, a black hole would have as massive a mass as a mountain. So you better stay away from black holes.
Photos from Pixabay.
