The most weird objects in the universe

In our universe, there are objects that seem to arise from the most creative imagination; some of them have photos that look like a fantastic artwork.

Although we are used to hearing about black holes, if we think about them, these objects seem to come from a fantasy not our world... but they are not the only weird objects in the universe.

Have you heard about quasars, pulsars, dark matter, nebulae, supernovae, or magnetars?

Here I tell you about these and other curious objects of our universe.

Black hole

A black hole is the final stage of a star of at least 3 to 5 solar masses. In the process of this type of stars’ death, gravity causes their contraction and nothing opposes to it. The consequence is the creation of an object so dense that it does not even allow light to escape from its gravitational field. For this reason it is named black hole. There are other huge black holes, named supermassive, which are not the result of the death of a star but are concentrations of mass dating from the creation of the universe.

The first image of a black hole was obtained on April 10, 2019 in the center of the galaxy M87; it is a supermassive hole with a mass of at least 6400 solar masses.

 

White hole

Black holes were first predicted theoretically, and the theory predicts the existence of the "white holes."

A white hole is the inverse of a black hole. This weird object expel all objects from itself, including light, so it would emit a large amount of radiation. Perhaps a black hole and a white hole could be part of a single hole named wormhole connecting two points in our universe or in different universes.

Nowadays, it is believed that white holes do not really exist and are only mathematical solutions of the theory of black holes.

 

Quasars

Quasars are astronomical objects found at enormous distances from Earth. They are believed to have originated in the early stages of the universe; perhaps they are ancient galaxies that inhabited the frontiers of the cosmos.

The closest quasar is about 780 million light years away, which in other words it means that its light was emitted 780 million years ago and has traveled from that time to the present day a long distance to reach our planet. As light travels about 300 thousand kilometers in a second, if this quantity is multiplied by 60 (seconds in a minute) x 60 (minutes in an hour) x 24 (hours in a day) x 365 (days in a year) and then x 780,000,000 years of travel, we can find the distance the traveled by its light in kilometers.

 

Pulsars

In the history of astronomy, the first emission from pulsars was thought to be signals coming from intelligent civilizations.

A pulsar is a neutron star that spins extremely fast and consequently emits a periodic or flickering signal like a lighthouse does on the beach. The neutron star is a contracted star whose spin speed increased due to the contraction. Due to the gravitational contraction, not a single living atom of its original atoms remained, only the neutrons survived and formed the material of the star.

The first pulsar, PSR B1919+21, was detected in 1967 in the constellation of Vulpecula in the Summer Triangle.

 

Neutron star, quark star

A pulsar is a neutron star that comes from a star of at least 1.44 solar masses. If the original star is more massive, its gravitational contraction could create a quark star. In this case, not only would the atoms of the original star no longer survive and neither would the neutrons. The resulting gas would be made up of quarks, the particles that in turn make up neutrons and other elementary particles.

At the present, the existence of quark stars has not been proven.

 

White dwarfs, black dwarfs, red dwarfs, blue dwarfs, and brown dwarfs

When the Sun dies, it will go through a stage of enlargement and then a reduction in its size due to its force of gravity. During this stage, it will expel gases that will become a planetary nebula and then a celestial object the size of a planet will remain, burning its last fuel until it dies. As long as it has fuel to burn, it will bright with its own but dim light and this object is named a white dwarf. 97% of the stars in the universe will die by this way. For example, the star Sirius B is a white dwarf.

It is believed that after consuming its energy, a white dwarf will turn into a black dwarf, a cold and invisible like-planet lost in space. However, nowadays this type of objects is hypothetical and it is believed that the universe is still young for black dwarfs to exist.

On the other hand, there are also stars known as red dwarfs. These stars are less than half the mass of the Sun and, interestingly, the closest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is a red dwarf. It is believed that when a red dwarf passes into its final stage of its existence it will become a blue dwarf, but there has not been enough time for blue dwarfs to form.

Finally, there are small objects that are not stars neither planets. They are known as brown dwarfs. These objects do not have as much mass to produce nuclear hydrogen fusion reactions as stars do, but they are also much larger than gas giant planets. Jupiter is the most massive planet in our Solar System, having more than 300 times the Earth’s mass. Well, brown dwarfs are about 80 times the Jupiter’s mass. The closest brown dwarf to the Sun is Luhman 16, which is 6.5 light-years away.

 

Dark matter

Observations of the universe have detected a lack of 26.8% of matter to explain its current configuration. This unknown mass is named dark matter since it does not emit any type of detectable electromagnetic radiation.

Currently the problem of finding this dark matter is one of the most important topics in cosmology. It is also part of the research in particle physics.

 

Red giant

A red giant comes from a star of less than 9 solar masses. This star has already consumed its hydrogen fuel and has grown in size. It now begins to burn helium by fusion reactions that convert fuel into successive elements on the periodic table down to iron, each successive element are expelled into its outer layers.

Examples of red giants are the stars Aldebaran and Antares. Our Sun will also become a red giant in about 5 billion years. In that time, its size will grow to the orbit of Venus or Earth.

 

Nebula

A poetic definition of planetary nebulae could be that they are the birthplaces of future stars. Scientifically, they are gaseous regions of the interstellar medium, some of them formed by the death of stars. The name "planetary" has nothing to do with planets but with the history of the first observations.

Currently, photographs taken with a long exposure time manage to capture fabulous and colorful images that contain radiation emissions from different types of gases. The imagination of astronomers is the limit for the names they have been given. A example is the "God's Eye Nebula" (also known as the Helix Nebula).

 

Supernova

The supernova is one of the most spectacular events in the universe and it is an explosion of gases in the final stage of a massive star in which the internal fusion of the star has no control. The star decreases in size and suddenly expels gases from its outer layers. The object at the center of this explosion could be a neutron star that over time, and depending on the initial mass of the star, could become a black hole.

If we had the pleasure of viewing a supernova from Earth, we would see a star with unusual brightness or a star in a region of space where we had not seen anything before.

The supernova SN 1006, seen in 1006, was the brightest supernova ever observed with a brightness that exceeded that of the planet Venus in days. In recent times, the second brightest supernova, SN 2006gy, was observed in the galaxy NGC 1260.

 

Magnetars

Closing this collection of rare objects in the universe, we have the magnetar or magnetic star. It is a neutron star with a huge magnetic field. Its rotation is slow in comparation to other pulsars, and its life is short, no more than 10,000 years.

Not much is known about magnetars, as there is none close to Earth. However, there is a record of millions of magnetars in the universe. For example, the magnetar SGR 1806-20 is located in our Milky Way.

Several of these objects seem to be fantastic and irreal, but theories and, in many cases, observations have confirmed their existence. As we know more about the universe and better instruments are available to observe it, surely we will find more curious and incredible objects.

 

Who knows what kind of astronomical surprises we will know in the nearly future!