- The Sunrise that we see every morning on the earth is actually an illusion. The sun won’t actually be above horizon for the next 2 to 5 minutes of the sunrise time. Earth’s atmosphere bends the incoming sun rays like a lens or glass of water. So we see the image of the sun projected above the horizon before the physical sun is actually there.
Since, Sun’s light takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth. So, when we look at sun, we are actually seeing the sun as it was 8 minutes ago. So, sun is 8 light-minutes away from us.
2. The distance between Earth and Neptune varies as the planets orbit the Sun. The Sunlight takes about 4 hours to reach Neptune, on an average. So, Neptune will be 4 light hours away from us. We see Neptune as it was 4 hours ago.
The nearest Star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri is about 4 Light years away from Sun. NASA’s Voyager space craft moves at the speed more than 56,000 Km per hour. At this speed, it would take Voyager about 80,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri.
3. There are rogue planets in the space. These are the planetary bodies which have no gravitational influence of any Start on them. They roam freely around the galaxy.
Since they are not related to any star, there are ways, different from conventional ones, to find rogue planets.
Our Milky Way has billions of rogue planets.
4. The oldest galaxy that has been ever seen from earth is about 13.8 billion year old starlight as captured by Hubble telescope.
It is believed that it is created just 400 million years after the BIG BANG. When the light from that galaxy left for earth, there was no earth, no Sun.
5. If you compress all the cosmic activities since the beginning of time into one single year calendar, we humans, who are at the verge of every great technology breakthrough, are living in the midnight of December 31, 11:59:59, in the last second of the calendar. The January 1st is the beginning of Time.
6. The Earth is rotating at more than 1600 km per hour speed. While the Earth orbits the sun, it moves at more than 100,000 Km per hour. The Sun is moving through the galaxy at 500,000 miles per hour. The Milky Way is moving through the universe at about 1.5 million miles per hour. We have no fixed place in universe.
7. There was the scientist John Michell, who in 18th century put forward the idea of black holes. In his paper for Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, he mentioned the black hole as DARK STARS. He imagined a star so big, so massive that not even light could escape its gravitational pull. He also added that we can detect these dark stars by their extreme Gravity. TODAY, we call it a BLACK HOLE.
8. The first ever discovered black hole by us is CYGNUS X-1. It was discovered in 1964. No, we have nothing to worry about it. It is about 6000 light years far from our SUN. It is found by X-ray detection.
9. There is boundary that separates the black hole from the rest of the universe is called the EVENT HORIZON.
In general terms, it is the point of no return. When you reach or pass event horizon, even light cannot escape it. The light if present inside the boundary of event horizon can never reach the observer outside the event horizon.
10. A star about five times as massive as the Sun will undergo a much more violent collapse. The outer layers of the star will be ejected into space in a supernova explosion, leaving behind a collapsed star called a neutron star.
Stars collapse when their fuel is completely exhausted. It starts to collapse under its own gravity. At last it comes up to love upon its electron forces that held the black dwarf star. It’s radius varies and sometime they turn into black holes.
THANK YOU FOR READING
Ashutosh Sharma (आशुतोष शर्मा)
EDIT 1: Thank you for the response.
As asked by Pradeep Rajpoot I would like to add about what humans are doing to study the outer space.
VOYAGER 1: It is a space probe that was launched by NASA, to study the outer solar system. Voyager 1 was launched on 5th sepetember 1977 and has been in operation ever since(over 39 years).
It has traveled over 138 AU (over ) from Sun as of march 2017. During the extended mission of studying the outer boundaries of the solar system Voyager 1 crossed the Heliopause on August 2012.
In simple words, Heliosphere is the region of the solar system in which the Sun gravitational field can be felt. The edge of the Heliosphere is the called the Heliopause.
Image source: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17046
Voyager 1 has crossed heliopause and entered into Interstellar space.
Look at the pale blue dot in the picture in the slight right side of the picture. That’s us. THE EARTH. It was taken by voyager when it crossed 6 billion Km.
The mission is expected to continue till around 2025 because by then, the radioisotope thermoelectric generators will no longer supply enough power to operate any of the instrument of the probe.
The voyager 1 carries a golden plated audio visual disc if the probe is found by any other intelligent life forms on the other planetary systems. It carries the photographs of earth’s different life forms, some scientific information, greeting from Secretary-General of United Nations and President of USA. Different sounds of earth, sounds of whales, baby crying, collection of music. The record also contains greeting in 55 different languages.
IF you go through this link on the official site of Voyager, they are continuously updating the distance of the voyager from the earth and sun. Where are the Voyagers
THANK YOU FOR READING. WILL COME UP WITH SOME MORE INTERESTING FACTS SOON.
Ashutosh Sharma (आशुतोष शर्मा)
Image source: Voyager 1: Google
PALE BLUE DOT IMAGE: Voyager - The Interstellar Mission
GOLDEN DISC RECORD: Voyager - The Interstellar Mission