Craziest Space breakthroughs of 2021

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I was planning to do a year-end wrap-up……but I am stuck and don’t know what to write in it. So instead of being stuck, I will do a different kind of wrap up

I can’t believe how much time has passed since I have posted anything about space and planets and moons and all that glitz glam. So let’s pick up where we left and take a look at the biggest and most interesting space discoveries of 2021

No, a star wasn’t burned, boiled or cooked to death. It was simply, um, VIOLENTLY engulfed by a black whole

You see black holes are a malignant spectacle. They are scary and gory and anything but merry.

So when they eat, things get messy.

Black holes occasionally feast on small stars and other objects of the space. But this is the first time scientist have seen a star getting swallowed up THIS way.

Once, not to long ago, a star wandered off from its path and strayed into a colossal, massive black holes territory. The star, being nothing compared to the massive size of the black hole, was pulled by the gravity and gobbled up

Spaghettification happens due to the sharp sudden increase in gravity near the black hole. If a person was falling down with feet first, the gravity is so strong that their feet would get stretched out like spaghetti. This is somewhat similar to what happened to that poor star.

In this case, due to the extremely harsh tug by the gravitational field, the star ended up bursting. Now the debris formed after the explosion became the target of “spaghettification” and was turned into thin thread-like structures which together looked like a ball of yarn and this was what the black hole finally consumed. It is being said that after all this drama, the black hole only managed to eat 1% of the star.

Wow. All that effort for nothing : (

[P.S If you aren’t able to imagine how massive that black hole was, don’t worry, it is beyond your imagination as it weighed 30 million times more than the mass of our sun!!!!!!!!]

Jupiter really is full of mysteries!

These glowing lights, similar to Earth’s northern lights, were first discovered 40 years ago. These beautiful light shows are usually created when high-energy particles present in the atmosphere near the planet’s magnetic poles collide with atoms of gas. These auroras, although comparable to Earth’s northern lights, are 100 times more energetic. Now the thing is, what causes these MASSIVE lights to occur in Jupiter’s atmosphere?

Previously, scientists had noticed certain pulses from Jupiter. These would appear every 27 minutes, chill out, then reappear. Now, it has been found out that these pulses are actually related to the planet’s mysterious auroras. These pulses helped to get to the conclusion that- The phenomenon is caused by electromagnetic waves, which lead to the gathering of sulfur and oxygen ions over Jupiter’s poles.

You didn’t understand that, did you? Neither did I. So let’s simply understand this without adding a bunch of voddo-doodo terms.

Jupiter’s magnetic field is compressed, which in turn heats the particles around the planet and moves it along the magnetic field lines into the atmosphere of Jupiter. This triggers a phenomenon, EMIC wave (Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron), which basically drags the particles along the field lines. The particles are already charged ions when slammed into Jupiter’s atmosphere, triggering the auroras.

[P.S I know I have mentioned how huge these auroras are, but do you know that they are actually about the size of our ENTIRE PLANET?!! Keep thinking bout it while we move on to the next discovery]

Does anyone else remember an episode of Doraemon where they teleported to a place with 2 suns?

Yes, you do. But if that wasn’t cool enough, our scientists have found out a planet that has THREE SUNS!

Normally we find unitary-sun systems or sometimes binary. But this is the first circumtriple planet-system ever discovered. 1,300 light years away, this system is in the famous constellation, Orion, and is called GW Orionis, or simply GW ori. The formation consists of 2 stars orbiting closer to each other along with the third which orbits the pair. Because it is rudimentary in nature, scientists have found dust and debris surrounding the system left over from its formation. Although details about the number or sizes of the planets aren’t confirmed, it is speculated that there might be huge gaseous planets, similar to Jupiter in the centre.

[P.S Although finding a triple star system is rare, NASA believes that 10% of the roughly 7 billion star systems in our galaxy have three stars.]

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So that was that. Felt good to e researching again about stars and planets and all those shimmery things.

This year, you will get to see more such posts, new year, new themes

Until next time

TA-TA!

🙂