3 Mind-Blowing Facts about Space

3 MIND-BLOWING FACTS ABOUT SPACE- THE FINAL FRONTIER.

When I was a kid, I always loved the crazy things space had to offer, and the hope that it holds. Meteor storms, antimatter, black holes, rogue planets, the chaotic elements that can only exist in space, etcetera. It’s astounding how much there is to learn. So here’s a few cool facts to bring to your family and friends.

1. Rogue Planets-
   Normal planets fit into some sort of orbital system, stuck in place by gravity rotating around a star or brown dwarf. Rogue planets don’t do that. Rogue planets orbit a galactic center directly, meaning they were ejected from the planetary system they formed in, or they never had one to begin with.The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) monitors almost 50 million stars around the universe in hopes of seeing a rogue planet or asteroid pass by one. Since stars create light, when an asteroid or planetary object passes by one, the star flashes briefly, which allows researchers to follow the object, if they catch it.Supposedly, there are billions of these rogue planets in The Milky Way alone, which is kind of a terrifying thought. What if one of these planets comes hurtling our way? Or what if one enters our system and gets sucked into the gravity field, creating a new planet in our system? The possibilities are endless.
2. The Tunguska Event- One bright sunny morning in June 1908, in a remote area of eastern Siberia, an asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere. From a few studies over the last 100 years, an estimate of the size of this meteor came out to be approximately 200 to 620 feet wide.That’s about the size of a pickup truck.The asteroid burned up 5 miles before hitting Earth. This created a shockwave 1000 times the size of the explosion created by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Approximately 10-15 megatons of TNT is a valid comparison for the amount of energy released.This event has caused much speculation in the scientific world. Since it happened in Russia, and during the time leading up to the Russian Revolution and WW1, this massive explosion that knocked windows out in a town 35 miles from the epicenter was not important to the Russian government. It wasn’t until almost 20 years after the blast that anything was investigated. A Russian team, led by Leonid Kulik, finally got the government to let them investigate in 1927.

   The most puzzling thing about this situation is the fact that there’s no impact crater. Since there’s no true identity of this explosion, over the years many have developed alternate theories to the event. What do you think? What could have caused an explosion a thousand times bigger than an atomic bomb, 40 years before the A-bomb was even deployed?

3. Moonquakes-When you look up at the Moon, you see a rock. It’s pretty when light reflects off of it to give us moonlight, but besides that it’s a dull, inactive rock. Right? But looks can be deceiving.
   
   Earthquakes can happen on the Moon.They’re called “moonquakes”, and they’re less frequent than our earthly quakes. USGS scientists say that moonquakes seem to be related to the varying distance between the Earth and the Moon. There’s at least four different types of moonquakes. There’s deep moonquakes that happen around 700 km inside the moon, those are most likely caused by tides, there’s quakes cause from the vibration of a meteor striking the Moon, there’s quakes caused by the rapid expansion of the Moon’s cold crust due to sunlight after a two- week night cycle, and there’s shallow quakes, around 20-30 km deep.Shallow quakes on the Moon are the worst of them. The problem with the Moon is that, unlike Earth, it doesn’t have weather. Water wears down rock. That rock expands, creating energy.  As energy spreads over a compressed structure, it nullifies vibration. Even the biggest earthquakes ever recorded lasted at the maximum two minutes because of this.Moonquakes can last up to ten minutes, because it’s made of rock and iron, so it’s dry, cool, and rigid. When a moonquake occurs, it just keeps vibrating, like a tuning fork. These moonquakes are one of the biggest problems with a permanent lunar base on the Moon. Without being able to safely airlock the facility, lunar bases simply aren’t possible.  It’s absolutely unhinged that someday there could be people living on the Moon.

So, did you like those facts about space? If you did, stay tuned to MasterSelf!