10 Terrifying Facts About Space
Space is infinitely large infinitely fascinating and most of all infinitely scary while roughly 99.99 percent of it is literally empty space when you do come across something of substance there's a halfway decent chance that could easily kill you or at the very least destroy your life much of what's truly scary about space are millions or even billions of light-years away so there's a little chance for it to affect our daily lives however space is incredibly unpredictable and completely out of our control if some rogue star or errant black hole decides that tomorrow is our little blue marbles time to go then we're just going to have to accept it in the meantime join us as we count down ten truly terrifying facts about the horror film that is our universe.
10- Our Galaxy is slowly being sucked away
They say nature abhors a vacuum well she should do something about the astronomically powerful vacuum that is slowly but surely sucking up our galaxy like a spaghetti noodle roughly 150 to 250 million light years away from our own Milky Way galaxy lies an anomaly known as the Great Attractor a cute name like that betrays just how horrifying this thing is it's massive gravitational pull is enough to send entire galaxies its way where they then collapse upon themselves and very likely we're on a collision course with it remember nothing in space sits still and that includes the Milky Way our galaxy zips through space at 1.3 million miles per hour and because the Great Attractor is so gravitationally powerful we are headed right toward it brannad this isn't likely to happen for a few billion years but simply knowing the universe has already decided our galaxy's fate like that is sobering to say the least what's truly scary is we still don't actually know what the Great Attractor is for one thing there doesn't appear to be enough mass around that area to account for all that gravitational pull not that we could just peer into a telescope to find out the Great Attractor is conveniently enough hidden behind what's called the zone of avoidance that's the part of the Milky Way that's so cluttered with gases stars and space dust that we simply can't see beyond it so whatever the Great Attractor actually is it remains largely a mystery beyond the fact that it's endlessly huge and endlessly hungry they're.
9-The giant black hole roaming through space
All the rage right now what with scientists recently capturing our first ever image of these otherwise invisible nightmares but the Eye of Sauron looking phenomenon that's trending in the news isn't the black hole we should be worried about there's one far closer and far more capable of crushing us without a single thought given the catchy name of be three one seven one five plus four two five this whole is wandering through space at about three million miles per hour and I do mean wandering most black holes remain attached to its galaxies but be three one seven one five plus four to five is something else entirely a row black hole whose galaxies got ripped to shreds after colliding with a bigger galaxy rather than assimilate into the bigger galaxy as most black holes do b3 171 five plus four twenty five instead found itself ripped away hurtling around space on lonesome sucking up whatever's in its path it's the intergalactic equivalent of a starving tiger that escaped the zoo and is heading for your backyard the rogue B three one seven one five plus four to five is currently about two billion light-years away from us but at its current zippy speed it could potentially cover that distance mighty fast and if it does come our way we won't even know because everything around us will instantaneously disappear B three one seven one five plus four to five is a million times more massive than the Sun so it likely won't have to get close at all if it wants to destroy our entire galaxy.
8-Solar superstorms could leave us in total darkness
World leaders billions of light-years away are certainly scary but at least we can sleep knowing they're not likely to kill us in our lifetime however there is something that could if not kill us instantaneously destroy our powering technology sending us back to the dark ages with no warning whatsoever the culprit our very own son occasionally the Sun emits gigantic solar flares that can generate cosmic solar storms these storms caused catastrophic levels of UV radiation and energy to hurtle hundreds of millions of miles from the sun's surface in a matter of seconds if any of these storms come Earth's way the radiation and energy would likely be enough to disable and destroy all things electric goodbye internet GPS TV and artificial lighting of any kind we would instantly be plunged back into pre-technological times relying on whatever heat and light earth decides to provide for us and nothing more it would likely take years to recover and the cost would be trillions of dollars don't think for a second it can't happen because just a few years ago it almost did in July 2012 the Sun Belt out its most powerful solar flare in over a hundred and 50 years sending a huge wave of toxic energies screaming through Earth's orbit our planet miss getting caught in the crossfire by just one week had the Sun thrown its tantrum just a wee bit sooner the world today would be mighty different very possibly you wouldn't reading this list right now nor would I have written and filmed it instead we'd all be farming for food and hunting around candles for warmth at night.
7-Meteors can strike without warning
You know how our old friends the dinosaurs bid farewell to existence thanks to a meteor strike 65 million years ago well that could happen again at literally any time if a big enough space rock was to enter our the atmosphere and punch our planet at the top speed anywhere from twenty-five thousand to a hundred and sixty thousand miles per hour the ensuing series of disasters combined with oxygen choking dust would send almost all life to an early grave thankfully we do have modern technology provided a solar flare doesn't knock it all out first that can track nearby meteors comets and asteroids if we detect one maybe close and large enough to do major damage we can work to reroute or even destroy it before it destroys us but even then if space wants to hurt us it can and will no matter what we think we got a big reminder of that in 2013 when a meteor entered the atmosphere over Russia it broke apart in the rocks wind up injuring hundreds but what if it had stayed intact if it did and if it had been any bigger untold amounts of life could have perished.
6-Some stars suck the life out of others
Much like an empire conquering new lands to become a bigger empire there are actually stars out there so dedicated to becoming bigger brighter stars they were literally eaten nearby stars to become bigger and brighter technically called out type stars but more appropriately nicknamed vampire stars these predators are typically enormous blue giants attached to much smaller stars that serve as the bigger stars dinner imagine a supermassive Shang soon from Mortal Kombat sucking his opponent's Souls to stay forever young and you're on the right track this kind of life isn't meant to last long and indeed these vampire stars are on a collision course with boom once it sucks up enough of its partner stars energy not only will the smaller star be left a cold lifeless husk but the vampire star will grow so massive and so bloated that it will likely explode in a spectacular supernova that's why it's so important to not overeat.
5-The Eridanus supervoid
Sometimes the scariest something is nothing at all take the original Superboy a section of intergalactic space that is just that super void there's literally nothing inside not even dark matter scientists estimate the original super void also known as the CMV cold spot measures 500 million light years across a Lightyear spins roughly five point eight eight trillion miles so multiply that by 500 million and realize there's an entire section of space that large with absolutely nothing around now realize that NASA has yet to discover anything in the universe larger than that some think the void may be the largest black hole in the universe while others actually think it may have formed when a parallel universe collided with our own stamping out any and all matter caught in the middle of a multiverse the theory has certainly left the field it's currently about as plausible as any other explanation for the voids eerie existence.
4-One day, all lights in the sky will vanish
Few sites are more beautiful than a starry night sky on a clear evening space can seem positively littered with glowing dots and swirls of different shapes and sizes it won't last forever however as depressing as it sounds Earth will eventually bear witness to a sky with virtually nothing on display future night Watchers will see nothing but endless black over the next several billion years our galaxy will merge with other galaxies keeping them largely out of you meanwhile other galaxies will move further and further away from us making it difficult and eventually impossible for us to see them adding to that issue is that as the universe expands more and more it'll do so faster and faster to the point where one day you'll see stars in the next they're gone forever in billions of years if we're still around humans will likely have no idea space even exists they'll see the Sun the moon a few extra dots here and there and that's it as scientific american explained to our distant descendants the universe will look like a small puddle of stars in an endless changeless boy it's not quite as romantic as a backlit canopy but far more realistic.
3-Extended space travel can change your DNA
Not everything's scary about space is millions or billions of miles away sometimes space can mess with us right in front of your very eyes take a 2016 incident where the rigors of space actually changed immense genetic the build-up to the point where he became an entirely different person in 2016 an astronaut named Scott Kelly returned to Earth after a year working in the International Space Station to his surprise he learned that he was two inches taller than before that shouldn't happen to adults but that's not all scientists studied his DNA and discovered that his genetic makeup had dramatically changed compared to when he first left Earth this meant that for all intents and purposes Scott Kelly was literally a new man he also no longer had an identical twin brother when he left Earth fellow astronaut Mike Kelly looked exactly like him a year later they were fraternal twins simply because space willed it that way but how scientists believe that space is so foreign and so hard on the human body that can actually alter our cells basic biology effectively mutating them this is what happened to Scott Kelly and he's remained a changed person to this day he's no longer two inches taller than his brother but his DNA remains altered and it will likely stay that way for the rest of his life.
2-Decompression
If you're going to die in space chances are it won't happen due to a black hole or a solar flare smacking you in the face more likely you'll succumb to the horrors of decompression or exposure to the vacuum of space which sounds like a terrible way to go for the most part if an astronaut suffers decompression they will die very shortly after in 1965 a technician at Houston's Johnson Space Center was working in a vacuum chamber he accidentally detached a hose which immediately depressurize his spacesuit within seconds he was unconscious though thankfully others were present to repressurize his suit in time for him to regain consciousness even that brief bit of exposure to what is essentially space damaged the man he could feel his tongue begin to boil as he passed out and for four days afterward he couldn't taste anything he wound up being okay but exposure to that vacuum for even a few seconds longer could have proven devastating if not violently fatal.
1-Floating animal (and human) corpses
Let's close this list out with a terrifying space fact that only exists because of us look up in the night sky and realize that among the stars and lights there are likely countless dead bodies up there we've effectively turned space into an infinitely large floating Cemetery while we don't do it anymore the early days of exploring space saw us doing so using animals we would send dogs cats rats flies rabbits frogs and even a chimpanzee into space mostly to see what would happen as it turned out nothing good happened and tragically many animals died in space even worse many of them are still up there stuck in spacecraft that never returned to Earth and are doomed to drift forever through space alone and forgotten even creepier is how many failed human missions met the same fate nobody ever collected these spacecraft either meaning countless doomed major Tom's are stuck up there too floating in their tin cans far above the world for all eternity or at least until the Sun catches them and roasted them to dust.
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