See full version: These Scary Things in Space Will Haunt Your Dreams
A witch appears to be cackling out into space in this eerie image from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The infrared portrait shows the Witch Head nebula, named after its resemblance to the profile of a wicked witch. more
SPACE.COM ASSOCIATE EDITOR — Hanneke joined the team at Space.com in August 2016 as a staff writer and producer. She has previously written for Scholastic, MedPage Today, Scienceline and Oak Ridge National Lab. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her home town of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University.
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Yikes! This ghastly face in space appears to be screaming while suffering through a miserable, fiery death. But no real skulls were harmed in the making of this photo. It's actually an X-ray image of cluster of galaxies known as the Perseus Cluster.
Eventually, this process stops when the hole has nothing left to feed on, essentially shutting itself down. However, during the AGN phase star production is increased rapidly in what are called starbursts. These stars are massive and most often end in supernovas, wiping out whatever may be nearby. In essence, supermassive black holes could be seen as littering their own galaxies with tons of explosives. here
It’s entirely possible that Eta Carinae, the nearest object capable of pulling off the hypernova, could just up and explode. However, it’s too far away to do any extensive damage from seventy-five hundred light-years away. Had it been in our neighborhood, the plasma jets at the explosion would easily wipe out life on the planet. However, our solar system is like a gated community and Earth is safe, keeping the scary hypergiants a healthy distance from our sidewalks.
Depending on what decade you were raised in, our solar system has anywhere between eight and nine planets. But that’s only counting the planets that play by the rules. Rouge planets are the bad boys of outer space, and they simply do not give a damn about you or your precious “orbit.” here
While frightening entirely on their own, a few things about rogue planets are straight-up terrifying. First, the number of them is estimated to be equal to twice as many stars in our galaxy. That’s… a lot. Second, the average size is comparable to that of Jupiter. Now imagine two-hundred billion Jupiters untamed by a strict orbit, rushing around in any direction at all. Either God has a twisted sense of humor or he just really, really likes pinball. [links]
However, that isn’t the danger. It’s true that fast movers don’t possess a great reach, but when they combine with other objects, they change direction, so we could potentially have hundreds of invisible speeding space suckers swirling the cosmos. The real danger is that one of these holes strikes something and sends it our way at nine-hundred million miles an hour. Good going with that bomb shelter, asshole.
You may think differently about wishing on one of these stars. A group of stars that astronomers have aptly named "vampire stars" go about sucking the life blood of their neighbours in order to go on burning for longer.
To understand space is to try and make sense of the unknown - and what we already understand about the black, mysterious reaches of outer space is faintly terrifying! Did you know, for example, that for every single grain of sand on the planet, there are close to 10,000 stars in the universe and it's also estimated that each galaxy contains 100 billion stars? Okay, try this on for size - Hubble Telescope images taken of the night sky have helped scientists deduce that the known universe may contain more than 100 billion galaxies! [links]
Researchers believe that, based on the unruly nature of this black hole, it may have bumped into another galaxy and, instead of merging its surrounding galaxy with the one it collided with, ripped apart to pursue its own path. These are known as naked or rogue black holes and there could be more out there, looking to start a galactic turf war! here
In a bid to understand how zero gravity nooky may be possible, the actress and space enthusiast, Vanna Bonta, apparently developed the idea of a special spacesuit for two - almost like a giant sleeping bag that keeps a couple stable enough to, ya know. [links]
Not every spacecraft has been recovered from failed space missions of the past, including many of the human crew members to have died upon launching into orbit. This could very well mean that space is littered with floating corpses. Imagine these casting a shadow across the moon? here
For the men and women of history that have braved the final frontier and lived to tell the tale, their experiences of life in space - from doing spacewalks to going to the bathroom - have been unlike anything we Earth-dwellers could possibly imagine. From some horrific truths about living in space to some generally freaky facts about our weird and unfathomable universe, we've rounded up 15 truly creepy facts about the world beyond our world.
Photo: Laski Diffusion/East News/Getty Images more
“These babies were huge, sir! Enormous! Oh, God! You wouldn’t believe it! I’m telling you there are other spacecraft out here … lined up on the far side of the crater’s edge! They’re on the moon watching us!” more
Soviet Azerbaijani astronaut Musa Manarov spent 541 days in space during his career. One day in 1991 was different from all the rest. En route to the MIR space station, he caught a cigar-shaped UFO on camera. For two full minutes. He watched as it lit up at certain moments and spiraled through the cosmos. [links]
After four days shooting up to the great abyss, American astronauts Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, and John Young were on the far side of the moon. It was 1969. While photographing craters and sipping grape juice, the three began to hear otherworldly, organized noise coming from their headsets. It happened for one full hour.