Whether or not it’s in our personal yard or hundreds of thousands of light-years away, the universe can get fairly bizarre.
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a snapshot of the early universe; it’s the oldest mild we are able to see. This mild has been Doppler shifted into the microwave portion of the spectrum, outdoors the realm of naked-eye observing. On this picture, generated with knowledge from the Planck satellite, totally different colours symbolize tiny temperature fluctuations within the universe. Credit score: ESA and the Planck Collaboration
1. What it smells like
Area smells like brimstone, not less than in accordance with former astronaut Chris Hadfield. His concept is that the vacuum causes hint chemical substances to “leak” out of the partitions of a spacecraft, giving the impression that space has a odor, despite the fact that it probably doesn’t. We do know that Moon dust has a scent nevertheless, and it’s not very tacky. Based on astronauts, who had been coated in lunar dust each time they got here again from an tour, it smells extra like gunpowder.
2. There are extra bushes on Earth than stars within the Milky Way
Although Earth is finest identified for being a water wealthy planet, we might must rebrand to a inexperienced stuffed planet. It might shock you, however there are extra bushes on Earth than there are stars within the Milky Way. Based on a study printed in Nature there are about 3 trillion bushes on our planet. This far out paces the “measly” 100-400 billion stars estimated to exist within the Milky Way.
3. It’s eerily silent
Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise’s tagline “In space nobody can hear you scream,” is true.
Sound is mainly simply vibrating air — one thing the cosmos is missing. The universe’s most excessive occasions, from colliding planets to supernovae, would happen silently for an observer. Area companies like NASA have introduced sound to a few of space nevertheless. As an alternative of turning a microphone to the cosmos, researchers use a way referred to as knowledge sonification that converts radio waves, plasma waves, and magnetic discipline into audio tracks so we are able to “hear” space.
4. It’s darkish regardless of these 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars
It’s estimated that there are not less than 1 septilion stars within the universe — that’s the number one adopted by 24 zeros. So with so many stars, why is it that the evening sky seems, for probably the most half, black? This query is so frequent — and essential — that it has a reputation: Olbers’ paradox. The important thing to this “downside” is that the celebs within the universe have solely had 13.7 billion years to be born, evolve, and die, so the universe will not be truly stuffed with stars at each location for us to see. Moreover, mild has a finite pace, so we are able to solely see mild that has had sufficient time for the reason that starting of the universe to journey from its origin to Earth. Moreover, because the universe expands, mild touring towards us from distant sources undergoes a course of referred to as Doppler shifting, which stretches the sunshine to longer wavelengths. Given a big sufficient shift, the sunshine is now not seen to the human eye. In truth, the oldest radiation we are able to see within the universe, the cosmic microwave background, has been stretched a lot that, although it’s in every single place, it’s invisible to the bare eye.
