25 AMAZING Facts About the Universe

Today's video is brought to you by Fume. The universe is incredible. I mean, just think about it. All of its ordinary matter, all the particles that make us, and everything we can see, account for only 4% of its total mass. So what's out there? Just how big is it? And even better, how will it affect our science and influence the world a couple years from now? If those are the questions that keep you up at night, you've come to the right place. I'm Mike with List25 and here are 25 Amazing Facts About The Universe. But before we begin, huge shout out to our two ultimate fan members, Harshana Puri and Breton Lively. Thank you guys so much. 25. We Found A Souvenir From The Beginning Of Time And Lost It A few years ago, astronomers discovered a relic from the beginning of time, a mere 375 light years away. HIP 11952 is a very unique and ancient star. Our brightest minds say the star formed around 12.8 billion years ago, when our Milky Way was, quote, still a baby. A few years ago, scientists were astounded to discover that the star was actually home to something even more incredible, two exceptionally ancient planets. And then the plot took an unexpected turn. Eager to learn more, astrophysicists came on board and studied HIP 11952 over 150 days. And instead of finding two massive planets in the system, they discovered absolutely nothing. Sadly, they concluded that the previous discoveries of the two ancient planets were incorrect and caused by instrument errors. Whoops. 24. Dark Matter May Actually Be Disappearing Up to now, dark matter has mostly appeared to be immortal and ever-present, but a new wrench in the works paints it as a volatile entity. The expansion speed of the universe, as predicted by our models, failed to match the variations detected 300,000 years after the Big Bang. The discrepancy can be explained if you consider that dark matter, which existed at the dawn of time, probably disintegrated into hypothetical particles or neutrinos due to decay. However, according to the study, the current universe is 5% poorer in dark matter, given that some decay and others don't. The unpredictable components may have all died off after the first few thousand or hundreds of thousands of years. And then again, maybe they didn't because they could still be decaying and changing the layout of the future universe. 23. All the Other Dwarf Planets I apologize if this is where you hear the final word on the notorious debate. Pluto is, and always has been, a dwarf planet. We're sorry that your education system failed you, because our solar system contains far more than just one dwarf planet next to the better-known eight planets. Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris are the additional four dwarf planets in our solar system. And yes, they've always been there. In fact, we've known about Ceres since the 1800s. Makemake even has a moon. And Haumea? Well, Haumea has two. And we also have other dwarf planet candidates, anywhere between 200 in the Kuiper Belt and 10,000 in the expanse beyond. What else aren't they teaching us? 22. The Earth Isn't the Only Planet Undergoing Tectonic Change Our planet's ever-shifting tectonic plates have been in motion for about 3.3 to 3.5 billion years. It's created our mountains, islands, volcanoes, and every pretty landscape you can think of. The process is in fact integral to the very existence of life. And yet, while the Messenger spacecraft in 2016 revealed that Mercury is shrinking due to similar tectonic activity, that means we shouldn't get too comfortable with the notion that everything will remain as it is forever. If Mercury is shrinking, the same fate may very well await the Earth. Nothing is forever. Cold turkey may be great on sandwiches, but there's a better way to break your bad habits. 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And as someone with ADHD, my favorite part is the fact that it can also double as a fidget toy. Like, yeah, I was super excited to reveal my discovery until I realized they made it like this on purpose. So, you know, with fidgeting in mind. But the magnets and the clicks are super satisfied. And just look how beautiful this wood is. Mine here is the prominent version, but they just released the Solano back in November with a premium walnut barrel and Onyx black coated mouthpiece. So you can upgrade your Journey Pack to the Solano and still get 10% off. That's tryfume.com and use code list to save an additional 10% off your order today. Seriously. Oh, it tastes so good. And no vaping. It's literally, there's nothing there. Just their core. It's really cool. Now back to the video. 21. Jupiter's Jovian Lightning Throughout our history, astronomers have theorized that Jupiter might have lightning, a theory that was finally confirmed in 1979 by NASA's Voyager 1. However, the spacecraft also revealed that Jupiter's lightning only occurs near the poles, unlike our equator-centric activity. Another flyby was required to understand why lightning avoided Jupiter's bowels like the Black Death. More recently, the Juno spacecraft orbited Jupiter and found that heat is the reason lightning never strikes the planet's equator. On Earth, the equator gets maximum sunlight, generating rising warm air conducive to lightning formation. However, Jupiter experiences an inverse process. Sunlight warms its equator, stabilizing the upper atmosphere and prevents warm air from rising. This causes the lightning to strike Jupiter's poles, where atmospheric stability is absent and internal heat propels the hot air to the atmosphere. 20. The Births and Deaths of Stars in the Milky Way Have you ever wondered how often new stars are born in our galaxy? Well, you're not alone. A group of astronomers has been studying aluminum-26, the isotope usually found where stars end, or start their lives. By analyzing the decay of the aluminum dust pockets, they've calculated that seven new stars are born in the Milky Way every year. And once every 50 years, or so, a star explodes into a supernova. Stars release massive amounts of hydrogen and helium into space when they die. Over hundreds of thousands of years, these particles gather into dense molecular clouds. Eventually, the center of these clouds collapses under its own gravity, and a new star is born. It's basically an ecosystem. Death creates life. 19. The Star Factories While we're still on the subject of stars, let me tell you about that one time astronomers discovered a weird space blob. It was a collection of only hydrogen gas, no stars, but it spanned the size of an entire galaxy. It shined extremely brightly, but no one could explain why. They eventually discovered 30 of these blobs, but the riddle of their existence remained unknown until the collaborative effort of multiple astronomers, telescopes, and simulations revealed the origin of their luminosity. We discovered that these mysterious hydrogen blobs are actual star factories. These blobs produce stars hundreds of times faster than our own Milky Way. Nearby galaxies host material for star formation, but the actual brightness comes from the moment when the new stars are formed. During this instant, the stars release a burst of ultraviolet light, scattering the hydrogen gas, which is what causes those blobs to glow so brightly. 18. The Gravitational Lensing of Hamilton's Object There are no two galaxies that are alike. Keeping this rule in mind, scientists were astounded to discover identical twin galaxies in 2013. The two even rested next to each other, making it clear they were freakishly similar. They named the unexpected phenomenon Hamilton's Object. The identical galaxies remained a mystery until 2016, when someone suggested that gravitational lensing could be to blame. This bizarre occurrence is actually insane. What happens is that light and spacetime get bent when large celestial bodies appear in a row, making them seem closer when viewed through a telescope. The bending can also create mirage images. The end result? The illusion of two identical objects sitting next to each other. 17. The Energy in Particle Geysers The Milky Way is a hub of activity, with stars dying and bursting to life in a never-ending cycle. And more recently, we've observed something else coming from its galactic epicenter, a torrent of high-energy particles stretching across the galaxy for over 15,000 parsecs. That's more than half the length of the Milky Way. The particle geysers are invisible to the naked eye, but can be seen across nearly two-thirds of our sky with magnetic imagery. What is the source of the phenomenon? Well, hundreds of millions of years of star creation and decay have fueled a never-ending jet that is steadily creeping toward the galaxy's outer reaches. The geyser's total energy is over a million times that of a supernova, and the particles move at supersonic speeds. And it's not at all random. Astronomers are creating a simulation of the magnetic field that regulates the entire galaxy based on the structure of the particle jets. 16. The Mysterious Great Attractor Well, at number 16 on our list today, I bring you the grand puba of mysteries. When astronomers observed the Norma Cluster, about 220 million light-years away, they noticed something unusual and, frankly, confusing. Something known as the Great Attractor is tugging on galaxies in the region, pulling them toward it faster than 200,000 miles an hour. Just let that sink in. Something is pulling galaxies around at more than 200,000 miles an hour. Considering the mass required for a structure to exercise the necessary forces on galaxies, some astronomers have suggested dark energy. The force driving the universe's expansion might be to blame. If not, we may be missing critical components required to understand how gravity behaves on a large scale. Or rather, I like the idea that this is where all the lost container lids end up. 15. A Fatal Destiny According to new research, Mars will one day destroy its nearest moon, Phobos. Phobos, one of two moons orbiting the planet, is only 14 miles wide, and its orbit shrinks each century, bringing it closer to Mars by 7 feet. This moon will eventually break apart due to tidal stresses caused by the red planet. However, the entire process could take up to 40 million years. In the end, Mars will be missing one moon, but it'll have a Saturn-like ring to make up for it. 14. A Planet of Burning Ice Although fire and ice are opposites in nature, a massive exoplanet known as Gliese 436 b has been enveloped in burning ice. This exoplanet is approximately 33 light-years away, but it produces an incredible spectacle. Astronomers believe that the odd occurrence is caused by an unknown state of water. This causes Gliese 436 b's surface to remain solid ice even though the exoplanet's surface temperature is approximately 822 degrees Fahrenheit or 439 Celsius. These factors combine to create the incredible spectacle. And if you thought that was an awesome fact, stick around for the last three items on today's list because you're going to love them. 13. The Earth's Rotation is Slowing Down In kindergarten, you were taught that each day has 24 hours. When you think about it, it's nearly unthinkable that each and every day is exactly 24 hours long, not one second longer or shorter. However, the Earth's rotation decreases slightly every century, so our days aren't exactly 24 hours long. In fact, according to NASA, the Earth's orbit takes 24 hours and 2.5 milliseconds. Although 2.5 milliseconds doesn't sound like a lot, it's important to remember that the Earth has existed for billions of years, so if the Earth's rotation decreases every century, those milliseconds can add up quickly. Days, for example, were only 23 hours long when the dinos roamed the Earth, and if you think time is flying by too fast today, imagine what it must have felt like a billion years ago. 12. All Sun-like Stars Have Twins A lot of our stars have twins. According to a new study, even our Sun may have one, as all Sun-like stars are born binary. When astronomers studied the Perseus constellation to study young single stars and binaries, their calculations made the most sense when all Sun-like stars were born as wide binaries 500 astronomical units about 93 million miles apart. They found that all the partnerships either shrunk or broke apart after about a million years. They now believe a long-lost sibling could also help us understand the current state of our own solar system. If their theory is correct, our Sun's identical twin, Nemesis, might have become lost among the stars of our galaxy. 11. We've Got a New Type of Planetary Body In the world as we know it, planetary bodies can be classified into two types, planets and ringed planets. But that family has just grown with the addition of the synestia, a much larger cloud of dissolved rock shaped like a red blood cell. These wispy monsters result from two rapidly spinning planet-sized chunks colliding. Each body's angular momentum stays intact, whipping up its shattered remains into an outburst of hot debris with no solid or liquid surface. It's insane to think there's a common, yet entirely new kind of planetary body that we haven't seen first hand yet. But it's not that hard to understand why once you realize synestia doesn't last long, perhaps only 100 years, which is a hilariously insignificant span of time in cosmic terms. 10. Our Solar System was Birthed by a Supernova Every cosmic catastrophe leads to the birth of another phenomenon. For example, a supernova not only creates new stars, but can also spark a solar system into life, in this case, ours. Our solar system started out as a debris cloud, which solidified into bodies that came together, or apart, to create the planets, dwarf planets, and chunks of rock we call our home. But what was the catalyst? According to the isotopes we've discovered in the ancient meteorites, that catalyst was a supernova. And if a supernova punched our solar system to life, supernovae could very well be birthing new solar systems everywhere throughout the universe. 9. The Universe's Age While it's still being heavily debated in the scientific community, the common consensus is that the first human ancestor walked the Earth about 6 million years ago. That might seem like an eternity, until we compare this against the age of the Earth and the greater universe. Scientists currently believe that galaxies started forming around 13 billion years ago, and the universe itself began forming nearly 14 billion years ago. Compared to this massive amount of time, Earth is still a newborn, as it only started coming into being about 4.5 billion years ago. Or at least 3 years. That's my guess, 3. It's at least 3 years old, and I know that because I've been alive for longer than that. 8. The Galaxy Full of Ancient Stars What could be better than realizing the age of the universe, than finding out we've discovered stars that are nearly just as old? Astronomers recently discovered a tiny wisp of ionized oxygen in space. That's nothing to write home about, so why is it on our list? Well, it's actually incredible, because it came from the MACS 1149 JD1 galaxy, 13.3 billion light years away. It's exceptionally red, because the light was stretched out over an epic journey that began about 500 million years after the Big Bang. That presence of oxygen suggests that MACS 1149 JD1, you gotta come up with better names for these things, stars have been shining for a very long time, long enough to generate said oxygen. According to astronomers, these stars were visible just 250 million years after the Big Bang, a time not far removed from the birth of the first stars. Calling it MACS, it's just MAC. 7. We're Living in a Cannibal Galaxy The birth of seven new stars per year is not enough to account for the Milky Way's expansion rate, and boy is it expanding. Although we're not 100% sure how the growth is happening, new evidence suggests that the Milky Way is, well, a cannibal. Using the Hubble Space Telescope and data from about seven years of photos, researchers discovered stars moving tangentially along the Milky Way's outer rim. Instead of moving toward or away from the Milky Way's core, as every other star does, they just drifted along sideways. The star cluster is believed to be the remains of another galaxy that the Milky Way just absorbed. Call it crumbs from its last big meal, if you will. That collision likely happened billions of years ago, and it won't be the last. We'll likely consume the Andromeda Galaxy within the next 4.5 billion years at our current expansion rate. Unfortunately, none of us will be here to see it. Although I plan to live forever, so far so good. 6. Earth-Like Planets Are Not That Rare At only four light-years away, the closest Earth-like and potentially habitable planet is Proxima Centauri b. However, don't get excited yet. Even with today's technology, traveling there would take us more than 60,000 years. But let's not confuse the closeness of another habitable planet with the potential of the existence of other Earth-like planets. Astronomers estimate that the Milky Way Galaxy alone contains 300 million to 6 billion potential Earths. Yeah, let me say that again. 300 million to 6 billion potential Earths. And with the current figure of 10 trillion galaxies in the universe, there could be as many as 76 sextillion Sun-like stars out there just orbiting habitable planets just like ours. Although in ours, we do the orbiting. You know what I mean. You get it. 5. The Universe Is Finite There's no denying that the universe is enormous. But it's also finite. It does come to an end. The Milky Way alone has more than 200 billion stars, and we believe there are about 2 trillion galaxies in the cosmos. But it's still quantifiable. The outer edges of the universe, or its radius, is 47 billion light-years from us in every direction. From end to end, the distance across the diameter is 94 billion light-years. So that's the size of the universe. I think the bigger question isn't whether the universe is large, but what lies beyond the stars and planets at its outer edge? Is it nothing? More of what we've seen so far? What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. 4. Galactic Years There are 365 days, sometimes 366, in a year on Earth. But we also have galactic years. It would take 230 million years for the solar system as a whole to complete a single orbit around the Milky Way. That means that we will never achieve an orbit around the Milky Way in the course of our lives. The human race had not even begun to exist when our solar system completed its last rotation. Dinosaurs were in fact still alive at the time. For all we know, humans might not even exist anymore by the time our solar system is in the same orbit as it is now. Now think about this. If our universe is finite, 94 billion light-years in diameter, how long would it take our galaxy to complete its orbit? 3. The Largest Thing Out There Have you ever heard of the LQG, Large Quasar Group? Yeah, me neither. As it turns out, the LQG is the largest structure in the known universe. This region of space covers billions of light-years and contains more than 73 active quasars in multiple galaxies. Quasars are typically found in the vicinity of active black holes. Some of them can emit more light and energy in a single second than all the stars in our galaxy combined. This relatively new discovery is not only massive, but also calls into question some deeply held beliefs, most notably the cosmological principle. It argues that the cosmos should be uniform on a macro scale no matter where we look. Or to put it another way, it should look more or less the same everywhere. Something this large and unrivaled in size is obviously problematic from a cosmological principle point of view. This isn't the first nor last discovery that shows we know far less than we think we do. 2. The Biggest Black Holes Scientists searching for quasars in the early universe have discovered 83 new black holes, adding to the 17 previously identified. These objects are usually millions, often billions of times larger than our sun. They were already thriving 800 million years after the Big Bang when the universe was only a fraction of its current age. Researchers calculated that if you divided the universe into cubes of a billion light years on each side, each cube would get one black hole, resulting in one black hole per gigalight year. 1. The Observable Universe Now comes the best part of today's list. The universe is basically two distinct parts. The observable universe comes first, followed by the actual universe. Both are structures, as evidenced by the interrelated nature of the filaments and voids. In terms of how much we can see of the universe, we are severely limited by physical laws. Light as we know it typically travels at an unchanging speed through the vacuum of space. As a result, we can't see light from any object beyond the light horizon. As I've already mentioned, this region has a radius of plus minus 14 billion light years, the age of the universe, and a diameter of 93 billion light years that continues to expand. As a whole, our observable universe consists of an estimated 30 billion trillion stars that can be found in 7 trillion dwarf or satellite galaxies inside 25 billion galaxy groups, which includes 350 billion large galaxies like the Milky Way, not to mention 10 million galaxy superclusters. And we're lucky enough to live here. So, have you ever been to universe? All studios? I'm kidding. What's your favorite planet? You know what, rank them for me in the comments below. I almost want to not count Earth, because I feel like that's kind of important. So, aside from Earth, you know what, if you don't think Earth rank them all for me. Don't care. Also, don't forget to like, share, comment, subscribe, hit that notification bell, and check out my social medias. Nope, our social medias, including my personal ones. Links in the description. And if you like today's list, you will love the list to be dealing with 25 mind-blowing facts about the universe you need to know, where I discuss the radio signals we've been receiving from space and looked at the galaxy that'll one day eat us. Or we can eat it. Guess you should find out by clicking here. Go ahead. It's right here. I promise, this list is just as good as this one, if not better. One of them's better. That's objective. Subjective? Let's just click it. It's almost four in the morning. I'm exhausted.