The Top 10 Strangest Things in Space

These are the weirdest anomalies and things in the vacuum of space. Maybe in a decade or so, we won't think of these things to be so weird, and we'll find new, weirder objects and phenomena!

Source: www.space.com...


1. Galactic Cannibalism

2. Quasars Average Rating

3. Dark Matter

4. Gravity Waves

5. Vacuum Energy

6. Mini-Black Holes

7. Neutrinos

8. Exoplanets

9. Cosmic Microwave Background

10. Antimatter


Number 1 is 'strangest', while number 10 is strange, just not as weird. Does anyone else have any other things to add to the list or have an opinion about it?

What about the anomalies on Mars? What about the anomalies on the Moon? What about the objects in Saturn's rings? What about space junk?

[edit on 12-11-2007 by Raoul Duke]

Well I think Gamma Ray Bursts ought to be up there.

I don't see any information on the voting. Was this an online poll? Who voted for these?

Also, mega-black holes. I am not sure just where I ran onto this tidbit, but it seems there is some high strangeness with their size.

Good thread OP. We need to realize that there are so very many things about space, including it's very shape and size, that may prove so strange we never fully grasp the details. It's what makes our universe so wonderful.

reply to post by Hal9000


The voting system is simple. If you follow the link, all you have to do is just vote for each thing 1-5, 5 being the best.

Originally posted by Hal9000
Well I think Gamma Ray Bursts ought to be up there.

I don't see any information on the voting. Was this an online poll? Who voted for these?

I also think gamma ray bursts should be up there, but it's not for the audience to decide on which 'things' to pick; we just vote for the them.

Other things like anomalies on the Moon or Mars are small compared to galactic collisions or dark matter because there is only one Mars and one Earth Moon in the universe. It really doesn't matter compared to the things that can be found in many places of our universe.

Originally posted by Monsterenergy791
The voting system is simple. If you follow the link, all you have to do is just vote for each thing 1-5, 5 being the best.

I see now. You open the image and you can vote on it in the upper right hand corner.

reply to post by Monsterenergy791


What a delightful change, good thread Monsterenergy791. Anyhow, what about the tilt of Uranus- 98 degrees, more than a right angle! The reasons why Uranus should be the only planet with such an axial tilt remain obscure!

Imagine the seasons on this barren deserted world!

reply to post by timelike


Uranus's tilt is pretty odd, I'll give you that.

But it wouldn't be on the list because it's not a universal thing--there's only one planet Uranus, but good idea anyway. :-D

What about how super massive black holes power the center of galaxies. So basically without black holes galaxies probably wouldnt form like they do.

The two on the list that are the best are the interacting galaxies and gravitational waves. GRBs should probably be on the list too... Of course, there are so many strange and unique things out there in space that the list could be nigh endless.

And just think, in a few hundred million years our Milky Way and Andromeda will become interacting galaxies! Of course, it already is, in some aspects, going on right now between our galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds.

It won't be that bad though. For starters, Sol and its companion planets will have long been gone. On top of that, the gravitational interactions will create many new stars and even more chances for life, whether it's intelligent or not. Aside from that, the chances of stars colliding is slim to none, but it would be pretty darned neat to see.

Gravitational waves are a pretty neat topic as well. Maybe once the LHC is up and running early next year, after they tackle the existence of the Higgs Boson, work could be done towards solving this mystery. How, I really can't be sure, but I just have so much faith in the capabilities of that installation. Though, gravity waves have yet to be directly observed, I wouldn't be surprised if they were within the next century. Thanks to all those folks running Einstein@HOME that day may even come sooner.

reply to post by Monsterenergy791



Hell the whole damn universe is strange IMHO.

I always sort of tripped on Neutron Stars( diamonds the size of earth), and of course Black Holes. And, also White Holes are cool too. (Quasars).

I always thought Quasars where the other end of a good singularity punching a hole into our universe. The redshift was always impossibly far, but could be explained by by particles coming out from infinite distances after it entered the Black Hole event horizon in the other universe or location in this universe somewhere. They actually are not as far as first thought.

So I would add Quasars

Oh Yea. Top of the list might be Gamma Burst. If we could see that light we'd be almost blinded by those events. Don't want to be anywhere near that. One good one in our galaxy would sterilize everything. Youch!

ZG

Originally posted by NGC2736
Also, mega-black holes. I am not sure just where I ran onto this tidbit, but it seems there is some high strangeness with their size.

Particularly the super massive black hole in Sagittarius, in the center of the Milky Way. It's the engine for the whole galaxy. Man, that's gotta suck!

Most galaxies have them, but there are some where they are going critical and destroying their host galaxy, probably due to collisions with cores of other galaxies a bigger galaxy will swallow.

ZG

i have recently finished a stage two physics paper at university on astrophysics which was very stimulating; my top strangest things in space

1) anti-matter

2) black holes

3) the accuracy from which constants in nature have to be precisely turned too within a trillions of a degree for the universe to exist as we see it today

4) the origin of life via evolution of molecular component, RNA etc

In that case, I think extra solar planets around Pulsars are very strange indeed! How did they get there? That's the question no one seems to have a satisfactory answer for.

Originally posted by nzldude
i have recently finished a stage two physics paper at university on astrophysics which was very stimulating; my top strangest things in space

1) anti-matter

2) black holes

3) the accuracy from which constants in nature have to be precisely turned too within a trillions of a degree for the universe to exist as we see it today

4) the origin of life via evolution of molecular component, RNA etc

thank you for adding No.4 .. no way life evolved IMHO

reply to post by nzldude
Yes, I agree that the evolution of life deserves to be on that list. Life is pretty cosmic in its implications - and I am convinced we will soon discover that it's pretty universal, too.

Good list, it all went way over my head, but I like to believe that I know even a tenth of this stuff.

Excellent. Now if we could just get the scientific community to agree on some answers about how these strange things came to be.

This is a great list to work off of to start a thread, or even a school term paper. Each of these needs to be expanded so that our readers could get a better idea of what our universe is like.