20 Most Incredible Recent Space Discoveries To Blow Your Mind

the mysteries of the universe are endless referred to as our final frontier into discovery space has always contained extraordinary and mind-blowing mysteries since we first pointed our telescopes to the sky this wonder and amazement has only grown as our technology has developed allowing us to travel to these destinations we never believed possible instead of granting us answers to our questions it has only led to grander theories and even more puzzling mysteries to surface the universe is expanding faster than we thought whilst we may not be able to feel see or really understand it the universe is constantly expanding this however is not in the normal sense of the word we are located within our galaxy the milky way however the galaxies outside of ours are moving away from us and the galaxies that are the farthest away are moving away from us faster if you were to be in a different galaxy for example this would be the same all galaxies outside of that galaxy would be moving away from it even our own they are not moving in the conventional sense of the word because they're moving with space rather than passing through whilst difficult to understand the universe itself has no center and everything within it is actually moving away from everything else a famous analogy coined to explain this expansion is thinking of the universe as a loaf of raisin bread dough as it is cooked it rises and expands and as a result the raisins move away from one another but they are still inside the bread at this point you might be asking why isn't earth moving away from everything else then this is because on a local scale such as around us gravity keeps everything together and holds it in place this was first discovered in 1925 by edwin hubble the man the famous hubble telescope is named after and he proved that there was a direct relationship between the speeds of distant galaxies and their distances from earth this is now known as hubble's law the number meaning the rate of cosmic expansion in relation to speeds of galaxies and their distance from earth is known as the hubble constant in the last couple of years even up to this year new evidence is suggesting that the universe is expanding much faster than initially first thought the universe is outpacing all our expectations in its expansion and that is very puzzling says lead study author adam reese an astronomer at johns hopkins university who co-won the 2011 nobel prize in physics for helping discover dark energy this new evidence suggests that measurements of the hubble constant mentioned earlier using cosmic microwave background the afterglow of the early universe and the big bang is actually conflicting with estimates of younger stars and even the milky way this discrepancy is still apparent even after taking into account dark energy and other cosmic forces that are thought to be speeding up the universe's expansion this has and is still disputed by other scientists and cosmologists as incorrect or incomplete data however fresh research from the hubble as new as 2019 suggests this gap is actually larger than ever it is estimated that the universe as we know it is expanding up to nine percent faster than we originally thought when examining the trajectory of the universe's expansion from the big bang what does this mean well the discrepancy between the rate we believe the universe is expanding now and what we believed it should be from the trajectory created from the big bang means that scientists could be missing an essential factor in the cosmological model when measuring that would account for this discrepancy for now at least what's missing is a mystery but with all the fascinating discoveries we've talked about today it would be no surprise if in a couple of years from now we were discussing a new strongest material or new type of formation on a distant planet or even a new theory of the universe we just don't know one thing is for sure though as we try and figure out this wacky wonderful universe is that it certainly won't be boring ton 618 black hole black holes are massive objects that according to our most recent knowledge exist in almost all the galaxies in the universe however there are some black holes that are so huge that it is impossible for us to wrap our heads around them one such black hole is known as ton 618 it is situated near the north galactic pole in constellation canis venatici ton 618 itself is a distant and very luminous quasar it has been termed as a hyperluminous broad absorption line radio loud quasar this extremely luminous quasar was first discovered in 1957 during a survey of the faint blue stars that don't lie near the plane of the milky way galaxy scientists have estimated the size of this black hole to be equal to 66 billion suns this makes it the most massive black hole ever found the light originating from the quasar ton 618 that surrounds the ultra massive black hole is estimated to be 10.4 billion years old the galaxy that surrounds the quasar is not visible from earth simply because the quasar itself outshines the galaxy the quasar is estimated to be shining as brightly as 140 trillion suns this makes it one of the brightest objects in the observable universe scientists have estimated the radius of the event horizon of the black hole to be approximately 194 billion kilometers event horizon can be described as the boundary beyond which nothing can escape including light which gives a black hole its distinctive black color researchers are baffled by the tremendous size of the black hole one of the theories about the origins of this black hole is that it is a direct collapse black hole instead of being formed by a dying star supernova this black hole was formed by a supermassive gas cloud collapsing under its own gravity this is such a powerful process that it is capable of taking all the stars within the gas cloud with it resulting in the consumption of thousands of distinct sources of mass and eventually the formation of a supermassive black hole the mysterious radio signals from the m82 galaxy for 10 years now astronomers have been picking up mysterious radio signals from the m82 galaxy located about 12 million light years away the messier 82 is a starburst galaxy located in the ursa major constellation this galaxy is 5 times more luminous than our milky way galaxy and its center is 100 times more luminous than our galaxy's center receiving a radio signal from such a distant galaxy is quite mind-blowing it opens up all kinds of possibilities researchers do not know anything about the object that is making these signals the first signal from the m82 galaxy was received by the parks radio telescope in australia up until now more than 20 signals have been discovered as you would expect this is one of the hottest topics in astronomy today some scientists have given the theory that these signals are coming from the high energy pulsars that are being consumed by a black hole in the m82 galaxy another theory points towards the possibility of massive cosmic explosions and then there is always a possibility as per our own understanding that an alien race might just be trying to contact us the discovery of these mysterious radio signals from the m82 galaxy has given scientists a new hope about the possibility of an alien civilization at the same time it has also opened up a whole new mystery to be solved by researchers will we be able to see this mystery unfold during our lifetime only time will tell starless exoplanets may orbit black holes exoplanets are put simply just planets that don't orbit our sun recent studies have found though that some exoplanets rather than orbit a star are orbiting supermassive black holes this is also thought to be quite common across the universe as evidence suggests that at the center of a galaxy the supermassive black hole can pull planets into its orbit what's more is that it doesn't stop there there is suggest that these planets can also be formed around these black holes whilst it's true that black holes are never ending in the pursuit to consume everything around it they can also form a ring around themselves these rings are made of various gases and dust but form anywhere up to 30 light years away from the supermassive black hole itself it is theorised that planets can be formed when a star forms the cloud of gas and dust from around the star collapses and forms disks these disks are then pulled together and merged by gravity as you can probably put together this new research suggests that the clouds formed around a supermassive black hole can create these discs and potentially in turn planets these planets created around the black holes would be around 10 times the mass of the earth and could be giant ice or rock planets also because these planets would be formed light years away from the black hole that there wouldn't be any strange happenings on these planets caused by the extreme gravity from the black hole the scientists carrying out this research at the university of kagoshima in japan also estimate that tens of thousands of these planets could be orbiting the supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies and even go as far as to say this could be happening in our own galaxy too the japan earth grazer 2006 meteors are the small bodies of mata that enter the earth's atmosphere and become incandescent due to friction they travel at very high speeds and appear as streaks of light while many of the meteors hit the surface of the earth some meteors enter the earth's surface in such a trajectory that is almost parallel to the earth's surface due to their high speed these meteors bounce back into the upper atmosphere and re-enter space such meteors are known as earth grazers one of the most fascinating examples of an earth grazer was observed in japan on march 29 2006 the citizens in several cities of japan witnessed a bright fireball travel across the sky scientists in different research facilities in japan were able to accurately measure the characteristics of the meteor scientists determined that the fireball was caused by a meteor that weighed approximately 100 kilograms it had entered the earth's atmosphere at a height of 87 kilometers and then it covered a distance of 1 000 kilometers in only 35 seconds before leaving the earth's atmosphere this was only the third earth grazer to have been observed and measured accurately by scientists it was widely photographed and videos were made by ordinary people and scientists observing the earth grazer the event was also widely covered by the mainstream media it was one of the most rare and fascinating space related events to have ever been witnessed by a large number of people [Music] red square nebula in april 2007 nasa released images of a massive celestial object located in the constellation serpents this red coloured bipolar nebula is located in the same area of the sky as the star mwc922 scientists named it red square nebula because of its colour and shape the images of the red square nebula were taken using the mount palomar hale telescope this massive object is estimated to be located at a distance of 5 000 light years from earth the unique nebula has fascinated scientists because of its symmetrical shape according to peter tuthill an astrophysicist at sydney university red square nebula is one of the most symmetrical celestial objects ever imaged researchers are unsure about the exact composition and the origin of red square nebula however most of the researchers believe that the massive star mwc922 located at the center of the nebula is responsible for its existence according to peter tuthill many stars that have a low mass like the sun in our solar system get rid of their outer layers in order to produce stunning planetary nebulae researchers believe that this dying star is ejecting gas and dust into the surroundings creating the nebula it is believed to be a bipolar nebula formed as a result of the material emitting from the opposite sides of the star the twin brother experiment definitely seen as one of the strangest findings discovered on that of the international space station are the tests conducted by the national aeronautics and space administration to better understand the effects of long-term space inhabitation that was given the name of the twin brother experiment the experiment was referred to as the twin brother experiment due to the fact that nasa scientists sent up an astronaut of whom had a twin brother that they could use as a comparison of information compared to the astronaut brother of whom would be spending close to a year in space after his time up in space the astronaut went through a battery of tests to show any kind of differences degradations or changes in his overall anatomy to help explain the effects of long-term space habitation and prepare for eventual long-term space travel or colonization efforts after using more than 10 different research teams to conduct experiments on measuring large numbers of metabolites cytokines and proteins the research study found a strange effect that space had on gene expression the teams found that though 93 percent of the genome from the brother that was in space returned to normal upon landing back on earth there appeared to be changes in more than seven percent of his dna that led to changes in the health of his immune system dna repair bone formation networks hypoxia and hypercapnia this meant that after the one year mission the twin was more than affected by the cosmic radiation in space that led to dramatic changes in his gene expression as well as manifested illnesses in his life these changes didn't revert back to normalcy for another six months after landing back on earth and leads many to believe that it could very well be possible to have permanent genetic damage due to longer exposure to cosmic radiation regardless of the shielding of the capsules and the effects zero gravity have on the astronauts aboard the iss hercules corona borealis great wall the largest known structure in the observable universe is hercules corona borealis great wall this unimaginably massive object is a galactic filament compromising of a vast group of galaxies bound by gravity this massive cluster of galaxies is estimated to be about 10 billion light years across astronomers determined the size of the gigantic structure by mapping the gamma-ray bursts emitted from it hercules corona borealis great wall was discovered in november 2013. it exceeds the size of huge lqg by more than two times astronomers detected 19 grbs from the structure the gamma-ray bursts were discovered in the direction of the hercules and the corona borealis constellations therefore the structure was named the hercules corona borealis great wall according to john akila one of the astrophysicists behind the discovery of hercules corona borealis great wall the structure is larger than the theoretical upper limit on how big the universal structures can be but the discovery of this structure has truly confused scientists about the cosmological principle john her killer believes that there is still a chance that sooner or later astronomers will find a structure even bigger than the hercules corona borealis great wall scientists believe the size of the observable universe to be approximately 93 billion light years this means that the hercules corona borealis great wall that spreads approximately 10 billion light years across is about 10 percent of the observable universe another mind-blowing fact about this gigantic structure is that it is located at a distance of more than 10 billion light years from earth and it is believed that it came into existence only three to four billion years after the big bang researchers believe that this gigantic structure consists of billions of galaxies this means that there could be potentially trillions of stars and planets within this gigantic structure the chemical and biological possibilities that lie within this structure are endless exoplanets located in trappist-1 discovered within the trappist-1 system that made headlines from all around the world trappist-1d was one of the many exoplanets found orbiting a star very similar in heat and size to our own sun that led many research scientists to believe that many of the planets orbiting around the sun to be earth-like habitable planets and ideal for future colonization of a solar system the most exciting prospect of this discovery was not only the planets however but rather the distance the system is from our own solar system being only a mere 39.6 light years away from us making it an interstellar neighbour with a much easier point of access in fact previous efforts in developments of space technologies such as that of the orion nuclear-powered spacecraft could see the journey to the trappist-1 system met in as little as one generation of passengers and accomplished in a short 60 years this very well means that efforts could be started right now to begin interstellar colonization with current space technologies without any additional stress of developments already being performed the trappist 1d planet in orbit around the sun-like star of the trappist system also appears to be cooler than that of our own earth and far richer in composition of precious metals a rocky surface a low gravity for easy takeoff and an atmosphere filled with dense water vapour for colonization efforts however given the planet's size mass and density it is theorized to have a weak electromagnetic field which would not help to shield colonization efforts from damaging cosmic radiation similarly seen on our neighboring planet mars but even if the planet turns out to be incompatible with future colonization efforts once the passengers arrive at their destination it can easily be cannibalized for resources to build megastructure bases capable of supporting human life and assist in the efforts of terraforming and colonizing the other neighbouring planets nearby the closest neighbour to the trappist-1d planet trappist-1c is seen as the best candidate for future human colonization efforts that require next to no additional research developments in the realm of colonization the short distance of the interstellar neighbour along with all the raw resources that can be gathered by the neighbouring planet is only the first bullet point as to why trappist-1c is a prime candidate for colonization back in 2016 researchers found that the planet has a temperature that is very similar to earth with a maximum surface temperature of 140 degrees fahrenheit a temperature similarly seen in areas on earth such as death valley additionally trappist-1c has a gravitational force that is 97 equal to that of earth's gravitational forces making it habitable for long-term endeavors without risk to the health and wellness of colonisers as well as a mass large enough to support a strong electromagnetic field that can shield colonisers from deadly cosmic radiation this makes it a prime environment worthy of colonization efforts as the size atmosphere electromagnetic field and mass of the planet seem to be an almost perfect mirroring of our very own planet recent research also believes the planet to have a rich atmosphere of water vapour that could potentially see the planet slightly cooled enough to have surface temperatures similar to that of earth giant grb ring in august 2015 a team of american and hungarian astronomers discovered a ring of galaxies spreading 5.6 billion light-years across the massive galactic ring was revealed by nine gamma-ray bursts and hence it was named giant grb ring the researchers have estimated the distance of the ring to be around 9.1 billion light years from earth grbs or giant gamma-ray bursts are emitted when a dying star runs out of fuel it eventually implodes forming a black hole during this process huge quantities of energy get blasted in the form of collimated beams and if earth happens to align with these beams the scientists can observe these incredibly luminous signals which can then be used to determine the distance to the grb as well as the location of the galaxy hosting it the scientists believe that the nine grbs of the giant grb ring are associated to each other as they are all located at approximately a similar distance from earth according to scientists there is a huge probability that these grbs were emitted by the same structure and if this is the case this would be yet another structure that contradicts the current models of the universe in spite of its supermassive size the giant grb ring is not the largest known structure in the observable universe the 2008 tc3 on october the 7th 2008 an asteroid entered the earth's atmosphere and exploded 37 kilometers above the nubian desert in sudan scientists estimated that the asteroid had a diameter of 4.1 meters and weighed more than 80 tons the asteroid disintegrated as a result of the explosion in the atmosphere and more than 600 meteorites belonging to this asteroid were recovered by scientists many of these meteorites belonged to the rare type known as uralites these eurolites contain a number of different minerals including nanodiamonds known as the tc3 asteroid this was the first asteroid whose impact was predicted before entry into the earth's atmosphere the asteroid was discovered 19 hours before impact it was discovered by richard a kowalski who was working at catalina sky survey a telescope in arizona united states the meteor exploded 37 kilometers above the earth's atmosphere the energy of the explosion was measured to be equal to that of a 0.9 to 2.1 kilotons of tnt a large fireball was created as a result of the explosion according to media reports the light from the explosion was so intense that it lit up the sky just like the full moon an airliner that was travelling 1400 kilometers away from the explosion reported seeing a very bright flash of light after the explosion scientists started searching for the torn apart meteorites fifteen meteorites were discovered within the first three days of the explosion after analysis the researchers concluded that the asteroid tc3 belonged to a class of asteroids known as f-class asteroids researchers found amino acids on the collected meteorites and they concluded that the source of the asteroid was most probably another planet in our own solar system one of the pieces of the tc3 asteroid was gifted to richard kowalski the scientist who discovered the asteroid before it had entered the earth's atmosphere according to scientists it is not uncommon for asteroids of such a size to hit the surface of the earth in fact two or three such asteroids hit earth every year the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs scientists believe that about 66 million years ago one of the most catastrophic events in the earth's entire history took place researchers have found abundant geological evidence of an asteroid hitting the surface of the earth and causing massive destruction however the most conclusive evidence was discovered in 1978 when geophysicists working for an oil company discovered a massive impact crater underneath the yucatan peninsula in mexico the crater is located near the town of chicxulub and therefore it has been named the chicksylub crater subsequently the asteroid that created the crater was also named the chiksulub asteroid over the years a number of research studies have been conducted to determine the various features of the crater and the asteroid that caused it it is estimated that the crater is 150 kilometers in diameter and 20 kilometers in depth the crater goes quite deep into the continental crust researchers believe that the chikselup asteroid was approximately 10 kilometers in diameter as this massive asteroid hit the surface of the earth it caused a massive explosion resulting in earth's atmosphere being polluted by a huge amount of debris this severely altered the earth's climate and caused the extinction of more than 75 percent of species that existed on earth including dinosaurs some evidence has also hinted that a massive tsunami was also triggered as a result of the explosion researchers are still trying to get their heads around the climatic conditions immediately after the meteor impact further research is being carried out in order to better understand the mix of dust and various gases that engulfed the planet after the impact from the chiksulub asteroid water found on the moon scientists have often attempted to theorize the contents of the moon as well as its surface materials ever since the beginning of the cold war space age and efforts to retrieve lunar material were made there was hope that the moon would prove to be a far more capable life-bearing body as it is the closest celestial body to our home planet however evidence retrieved from the moon after the original moon landings proved that estimates could not be more incorrect at this original assumption unlike our planet the moon is not protected by a magnetic field of any kind and is constantly bombarded by a significant amount of helium-3 as a product of solar wind radiation it is this constant bombardment that would lead to the lack of any life-bearing developments on the moon of any kind including any attempt at finding naturally occurring water on the surface of the moon however recent satellite imaging has provided what the national aeronautics and space administration has referred to as unambiguous data that shows evidence of large reservoirs of water on the surface of the moon the satellite evidence published in the september 25th issue of the journal science provided details that residing deep in lunar craters that are permanently shadowed from solar radiation there are large pockets of ice that could store enough water to allow for the establishment of permanent lunar bases the existence of these ice craters provides evidence that the water molecules on the moon are incredibly mobile allowing them to find their way to the craters and pooling at the bottom in fact planetary geologist karl peters claimed if the water molecules are as mobile as we think they are even a fraction of them they provide a mechanism for getting water to those permanently shadowed craters this opens a whole new avenue of lunar research but we have to understand the physics of it to utilize it not only does this discovery have profound implications for lunar research and planetary geology but it provides enough evidence and support for the establishment of lunar colonization that could see itself in use within the next few decades as nasa has been working on their moon to mars mission that will use our orbital satellite as a launching point for rocketry and further colonization of the martian surface the first radio broadcast though its influence in history has been astounding the small broadcasting device we know as the radio has not been around for very long in fact its inventor nikola tesla did not first conceive of the idea until 1885. despite the young age of the device it was made apparent that mr tesla was far ahead of his own time when first coming up with his invention being the only inventor of his time to be made aware of the electromagnetic spectrum and the ability to tap into its powers and uses oddly enough tesla wrote extensively in his notes that when he made the first radio capable of receiving and broadcasting his signal as soon as he turned on the device he could already hear another person's voice on the other side he would later go on to claim that the people transmitting him a signal were those of beings living on the surface of mars and that they were attempting to make first contact with him this was only made more eerie as nikola tesla wrote that this voice was that of a man calling out his name saying tesla 123 over and over again before the signal cut out entirely many researchers speculate that this signal could have been nothing more than a background radiation misinterpreted caused by a solar wind of the sun however many believe that perhaps something far more creepy could have been going on in the background no explanation for this strange occurrence has been provided and still many speculate that perhaps nikola tesla made contact with something not quite human ranging from extraterrestrials to time travellers the conspiracy theory community seems hell-bent on trying to discover the root cause of nikola tesla's first received broadcasts is time travel possible this question has to be up there with why we are here and is there a god if time travel is possible then who on earth wouldn't want to try it out in theory we are all traveling in time just not in the way that you or i would think of it as humans we are traveling at one second per second so yes we are traveling in time the thing is we want to travel faster than one second per second and that is what we think of as time travel there are actually discrepancies between time at altitude and on earth due to the difference in gravity an airplane traveling in the air will actually experience time around a second slower than you will standing on earth this principle also applies to the way gps works according to a leading time travel researcher william a hiscock a professor of physics at montana state university traveling into the future is definitely possible but there is a big maybe hanging over travelling into the past the way in which time travel would theoretically work is by using something called the time dilation effect of special relativity this tells us that a clock appears to tick slower the closer it gets to the speed of light hiscock further explains how if you were to board a space rocket and accelerate continuously at one g which is the acceleration that would produce a force equal to the gravity at the earth's surface you would reach near the speed of light in around a year if you then continued to accelerate to the speed of light the time dilation effect of special relativity would come into play and time would slow down on board the ship with these factors in place a round trip to the center of our galaxy and back to earth would take around 40 years in earth time however due to the centre of the galaxy being 60 000 light years away 60 000 years would have passed on earth and hence you would have time traveled this also happens to astronauts if they have a twin sibling if this were true for somebody who had traveled to space they'd actually return so slightly younger than their twin now even though all this is actually possible in terms of physics the engineering practicality of it all is not practical at all which is why it's unlikely we'll be time traveling anytime soon in terms of going back in time things get a little bit more complicated wormholes is one of the ways that we could explore the past however you can't simply find a wormhole and step through it which again presents a problem stephen hawking proposed a theory called chronology projection conjecture which essentially is a sciency way of saying that nature does not want us to go back in time in other words the past does not want to be changed there's lots of loose ends when it comes to our understanding of space and how we can make our wildest fantasies into things that are a lot more real than a hollywood blockbuster sadly we aren't quite at that level of understanding yet but as time goes on science will only further develop and we may be closer or further than we think from these answers gordon cooper sees a ufo gordon cooper lived an esteemed life as an aerospace engineer united states air force pilot and eventual astronaut cooper fought in world war ii and was so impressive that the united states gave him the opportunity to travel into space while cooper was an amazing astronaut who broke records for the fastest journey from the earth to the moon and back and who was also the first astronaut to spend an entire day and night in space his legacy is somewhat controversial like many other space cadets cooper had been a pilot his entire life and was extremely familiar with aerospace science his credentials as an aerospace engineer and fighter pilot proved that he was a man of science and discipline so when he wrote his memoir detailing his experience with ufos his readers were perplexed how could this man who has such a firm grip on practical science be so convinced that he has seen signs of alien life though some people lost faith in his credibility cooper still gained a following of people who agreed that extraterrestrial life not only exists but that it makes its way into the earth's atmosphere more often than we thought cooper's first ufo sighting happened while he was flying over germany post world war ii while he and his crew were setting up a landing space for aircrafts atop a dry lake an uninvited disc-like aircraft landed about 50 yards from the crew members because of its mysterious arrival the men were conflicted whether they should approach the aircraft or call in for backup eventually they moved towards it while snapping pictures of it they recall the aircraft being completely silent as it landed and took off again it had extended its legs when landing and record them as it rose back into the sky once it was back in the air they never saw it again immediately after cooper called his contact at the pentagon where he was instructed to send the photos of the mysterious aircraft to the intelligence agency cooper looked at the photos himself before sending them in to ensure that they represented exactly what he saw with his own eyes he reported that the photos were in great condition and that the aircraft was clearly visible after a long while of waiting for a response from the pentagon cooper grew suspicious that there would be no follow-up and that the pentagon had ulterior motives to cover this up even without acknowledging that this aircraft was indeed an extraterrestrial ufo the pentagon had plenty of reason to launch an investigation because an unmarked vessel entered a classified and secured military location after this cooper began to write down his experience seeing the ufo in great detail which eventually played a huge role in his published memoir cooper lost a great deal of military and scientific credibility when he reported his findings to america as people began to see him as a bit crazy he was known to publicly taunt and discredit the pentagon because he believed that they knew more about ufos than they revealed to the general public and that the secrets they are harboring would be very detrimental to space exploration and military intelligence cryo volcanoes on cerres in the main asteroid belt that sits between mars and jupiter lies ceres the largest of the asteroids ceres first discovered in 1801 by giuseppe piazzi was originally classified as a planet this was until other large objects were discovered in the same neighborhood as ceres astrologists at the time realized they were looking at a new type of object in space so the term asteroid meaning starlike was first coined to describe these new objects in the 1860s it was widely accepted that these large asteroids had major differences to the planets we know but a specific definition of planet was never formulated at the 2006 pluto debate it was discussed the specific criteria that had to be met in order for an object to be considered a planet had it not been for a modification to this criteria stating the planet must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit ceres would today be the fifth planet from the sun obviously due to the asteroid belt it lies within ceres is not classified as a planet but a dwarf planet and an asteroid simultaneously now whilst the controversy surrounding ceres's classification is certainly interesting that's not what we're going to discuss today series itself is home to something much more fascinating since early 2015 nasa's dawn spacecraft has orbited the icy world of ceres examining its surface closely it wasn't until quite a few months had passed that the dawn would observe something so fascinating but so bizarre at the same time it was a 000 foot tall mound closely resembling what we know as a volcano scientists named it ahunamons in 2016 it was confirmed that ahuna mons was indeed a volcano but not your average volcano a cryo volcano a cryovolcano is as you can imagine a volcano but with a twist instead of releasing molten rock or lava like the volcanoes we have on earth a cryovolcano erupts water methane or ammonia the water and other gases released often turn into a solid form once exposed to the low temperature surrounding the volcano hence the more colloquial name ice volcanoes these eruptions are referred to as cryomagma or cryolava during eruption they are liquid but are also released as a vapor cryovolcanoes are thought to be able to form on moons and asteroids that used to have an abundance of water the reason ahuna mums erupts water and other substances rather than magma is simple the temperatures on series are simply too cold to melt rock but warm enough that ice can melt ahunamon's was only able to be understood more when scientists examined mineral salt likely the product of a cryo-volcanic eruption inside the okator crater found it had origins in ahuna mons which in turn relates both fascinating natural structures the okator crater is 57 miles across and as deep as ahunamon's is high the large impact that taller giant akutor crater into the surface of the dwarf planet must have originally started everything and triggered the later cryo-volcanic activity says andreas nathus framing camera lead investigator for max planck after this event rock around the planet reshuffled and moved up towards the surface the change in pressure allowed water and dissolved gases to escape that would eventually form a volcano it's also suggested that many smaller explosions around the dwarf planet caused the cryovolcanism rather than one major event cryovolcanism isn't exclusive to ceres though as it has been spotted on enceladus one of saturn's moons europa a moon of jupiter and triton neptune's largest moon cryo volcanoes are a fascinating insight into the wonders of the universe and things we couldn't even imagine being possible abel 85 galaxy black hole a black hole is essentially a region or place in space where the gravity is so strong that even things like light radiation or practically any particles cannot escape it black holes are thought to be created when a star dies black holes can be a variety of sizes the biggest being a supermassive black hole these are actually quite terrifying to think about they have a mass equal to that of millions of suns which is astronomical these supermassive black holes are at the center of large galaxies across the universe our own galaxy in fact has one at the center that is known as sagittarius a scientists have found that its mass is the same as around 4 million of our own sons black holes themselves cannot be seen due to the fact that no light can escape them however scientists can study how the surrounding area and stars for example and that indicates the location of a black hole late last year the max planck institute for extraterrestrial physics found what is currently thought to be the largest black hole in the nearby universe when observing the able 85 cluster a cluster of roughly 500 galaxies and more specifically the galaxy at the very center of the cluster known as hom 15a scientists noticed that the center of this galaxy was much more faint than it should normally be considering the sheer mass of stars within the galaxy this was what indicated the presence of a never-before-seen black hole after attempting to measure the mass of said black hole the scientists discovered the estimates were much larger than thought and in fact this black hole now dubbed an ultramassive black hole has a mass of around 40 billion times that of our sun that is a staggering number and there's no real way to comprehend something of that scale however it is fascinating nonetheless you might be wondering how something as massive as this ultra massive black hole could even exist within a galaxy given the size of our own well home 15a is a giant galaxy known as an elliptical galaxy an elliptical galaxy is formed when a spiral galaxy such as our own the milky way merges within another spiral galaxy it goes further though as this newly formed elliptical galaxy can then merge with another elliptical galaxy creating an even bigger galaxy when these galaxies merge together the black holes in their centers can also merge and exactly like the galaxies themselves create an even larger black hole and so on when these black holes collide and get larger it can push stars away forming the darker centre this is how the scientists discovered the holm 15a black hole while the holm 15a black hole is the most massive in the nearby universe being only 700 million light years away from us there is evidence of an even larger black hole located around 10 billion light years away from earth in the tun 618 quasar this ultra massive black hole is estimated to have the mass of around 66 billion times that of our sun vladimir kovalayanog witnesses a ufo vladimir kovalayanog a russian cosmonaut and air force general claimed to have seen a ufo on a space expedition on may 5th 1981. he is not the first cosmonaut to have seen a ufo in fact there are multiple space explorers who have reported seeing ufos traveling extremely fast through space so if there are multiple people who travel into space and see ufos with their very own eyes how can we cease to hear about it there is a simple explanation nobody believes them ufos have been so mystified in hollywood and in the media that we believe a ufo must be accompanied by a small green alien and even more the presence of such ufos and aliens must entail some kind of abduction of course most of the space explorers don't ever claim to be seeing aliens or even conclude that the ufo is filled with aliens they simply report seeing an unidentified flying object vladimir kovaliernock's ufo sighting was a bit different as his spacecraft flew across africa towards the indian ocean he reported seeing a disc shaped object surrounded by fog in the shape of a cone this object was flying near him when suddenly it changed directions exploded and then exploded again kovalayanuk reports seeing two different explosions one after the other resulting in two spherical figures of gold and white smoke the white smoke he said seemed to be holding the two objects together soon the mysterious flying object he saw disappeared under the earth's shadow and he never saw it again kovalionok is adamant that the spacecraft he saw explode and disappear was controlled by intelligent life although he didn't report seeing any little green aliens he stands by the fact that something was controlling the spacecraft he saw his reports were not completely dismissed in russia kovalianok was a prestigious cosmonaut who spent 216 days total in space over the course of three different space missions he was an extremely brave and intelligent asset to the russian space force and his legacy as a space explorer continues today hollow moon on november 14 1969 in an attempt to better understand the makeup of the moon nasa placed multiple seismic readers across its surface and then soon launched a lunar space module on a collision course for the moon the idea behind this theory was to allow the lunar module to strike the moon with such a dramatic force that it would send reverberations and specific frequencies throughout the entire core of the moon and allow the seismic readers to capture this data and help to accurately map out the inside of the moon what they soon discovered was baffling original theories and hypotheses had suggested that these reverberations would not last longer than a minute given that the surface of our moon is covered in mostly basalt which would work to absorb these reverberations and given its extensive presence was believed to make up the majority of the mantle of the moon at this time it was mathematically calculated to prevent the seismic activity for lasting for a prolonged period of time however as the lunar module struck the moon the entire celestial body began reverberating for over an hour nasa scientists describing its reverberations similar to that of a church bell ringing there is still no reasonable hypothesis for the cause of this today and no further information can be gathered given nasa's lack of future missions to the moon the most legitimate theory available at this time comes from the works of russian researchers michael vasin and alexander shabachov that had posited the artificial moon theory they began to notice that the craters of the moon regardless of the impact size or diameter all equaled out in depth they also noted that these craters generally had very shallow and flat interiors and in other areas even containing convex bottoms they hypothesized that meteors are hitting an armored hull underneath the basaltic surface of the moon preventing further depths into the celestial body and believing the moon to be a possible spaceship created by a complex alien life this theory was only reinforced as the mathematics for the moon and its density became an apparent issue given its size location and theorized general makeup the moon should have a density of roughly 5.5 grams per cubic centimeter however given its orbital path and overall physics we find the moon to only be 3.3 grams per cubic centimeter causing the moon to be significantly less dense compared to our earth despite theories of the moon's creation coming from the materials of the earth reinforcing facts also soon began becoming connected to the strange anomalous properties of our moon the moon is too big to have naturally been caught into the orbit of our planet for comparison our moon is 2100 miles in diameter whereas the largest martian moon is nearly 14 miles in diameter this has led to a wide array of debates among the scientific community as to its formation and even recreations and simulations of impact theory have proven ineffective and mathematically implausible as to the formation of our moon strange coincidences have also occurred our moon has the perfect diameter at the perfect distance to create a perfect solar eclipse the odds of this naturally occurring are astronomical and have led to further questions as to the viability of our moon naturally forming but what do you make of these interesting discoveries be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comment section below and help us by growing this community while working to solve these unexplained mysteries thank you for watching and don't 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Channel: Unexplained Mysteries

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Keywords: 20, most, incredible, recent, space, discoveries, to, blow, your, mind, space discoveries, recent space discoveries, incredible space discoveries, amazing space discoveries, new space discoveries, most recent space discoveries, 2020 space discoveries, space discoveries 2020, most incredible space discoveries, most amazing space discoveries, nasa discoveries, recent nasa discoveries, new nasa discoveries, nasa new discoveries, 2020 nasa discoveries, nasa discoveries 2020, nasa discovery

Id: jf4utNW4Y20

Length: 52min 34sec (3154 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 23 2020