The universe is full of many unknown objects and structures; it has millions of unknown mysteries. Many of these objects are so large it is hard for us to understand the extent of them. The universe is so large that it is hard for humans to even comprehend how big it really is. Everything that is studied in astronomy is so much bigger than any human scale that we work with. Some of the objects in the universe that are have been discovered and are still currently being discovered are the cosmic web, super cluster, voids, Lyman alpha blobs, radio jets, black holes, star and so much more. I watched a film on YouTube to understand more about these objects and this is what I found. The biggest known object in the universe is called the cosmic web. The cosmic web is an endless scaffolding of super clusters of galaxies surrounded by dark matter. Dark matter makes up 90% of the universes mass. The cosmic web is like a 3D spider web; at all of the intersections of the web are super clusters containing thousands of galaxies. Scientists believe that the cosmic web was made due to the big bang. Some scientists argue that it is not technically the largest object in the universe because it is not continually connected. The cosmic web is made up of hundreds of thousands of super clusters, which are …show more content…
A Lyman alpha blob is a giant cloud of gas that expands because of heat. The largest Lyman alpha blob looks like a giant green jellyfish and is located in the Aquarius constellation. This Lyman alpha blob is 200 million light years wide. It is known that the largest Lyman Alpha Blob was formed 12 billion years ago. Some scientists believe that the Lyman Alpha Blob may hold the answers to how galaxies are formed. There are at least 100 billion galaxies that exist in the universe that we can discover. Some of them are even 10 to 20 times bigger than our Milky Way. When galaxies collide with each other they become one big
In Alan Lightman’s, “Our Place in the Universe,” he describes his experiences in the Greek Isles explaining how meek it made him feel to be surrounded by the vast ocean with no land in sight except a small strip of brown in the distance. Great thinkers throughout history, have been exploring the visible variety of shapes, colors, and sizes, though the greatest of these are size, from the smallest atom to gargantuan stars. These massive differences in size change the way we view ourselves in the universe. (470) Garth Illingworth, from the University of California, has studied galaxies more than 13 billion light years away from us.
In the article The Cosmic Perspective by Neil deGrasse Tyson he examines a range of topics from human life coming from Mars to how our perspective of the universe relates to religion. In the year 2000, a new space show opened at the Hayden Planetarium called Passport to the Universe, which compared the size of people Milky Way and beyond. While a show like this might make someone feel minuscule and insignificant, Tyson says that seeing the size of the universe actually makes him feel more alive not less and gives him a sense of grandeur. I agree with his idea that looking at us as a people in comparison can actually give you a sense of grandeur. However, when I compare myself to the vastness of space, it puts events on Earth in perspective while showing how influential we can be as a people even if we are small.
It is believed that super massive black holes exist in the cores of many large galaxies, including the Milky Way galaxy, which is our galaxy. (Swinburne University 2014). It is believed that a normal black holes were formed because of a supernova explosion of a gigantic star, meaning when huge stars collapse, so the larger the star, the larger the black hole. ( Millis 2014) . So therefore a simple idea of how a super massive black hole might have been formed would be because of a collision of super enormous star or a collision of star clusters (star clouds). (Super massive black holes 2014)
Two men named Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis has a debate in 1920 that is still important today for changing how we think about galaxies. They talked about five important things. The first thing they debated was how big our galaxy, the Milky Way, is. Shapley said that the Milky Way was much bigger than we first thought, 100,000 light-years across, and that, because it was that big, it had to be the only one. Curtis said the the Milky Way was smaller than that, and that other galaxies existed past ours. They were both right and both wrong. Shapley was right about the size of the Milky Way, and Curtis was right about there being many more galaxies in the universe.
It is now believed that the origin of some black holes is nonstellar. Some astrophysicists suggest that immense volumes of interstellar matter can collect and collapse into supermassive black holes, such as are found at the center of some galaxies.
Black holes are believed to be the result of the explosion of a very large star, at least 25 times larger than our own. When the star explodes, much of its matter is blown out into space, resulting in a supernova. However, some of it condenses into a black hole. The approximate mass of the resulting black hole is probably slightly larger than the mass of our sun. There are black holes of much larger sizes, however, and they are gener...
In 2013 a team of astronomers discovered a new planet eleven times more massive than Jupiter and 650 astronomical units from it’s star. It’s relatively new, only 13 million years old, and still glows from leftover heat from it’s formation. This planet defies many of the limitations scientists know about star and planet formation. It’s too far away from it’s star to have been formed by gathering asteroid-like bodies from the creation of the star or to be made of dust and gas clouds in the primordial disk. Astronomers also considered the idea that it might be a failed start formed during binary star formation however the mass ratio of the planet and it’s star is too different for that to be likely either. Therefore, scientists cannot explain how such a massive planet could be formed so far out. Many astronomers are excited about this new discovery because it shows the diversity planet formation, giving them new ideas to contemplate and shows us that there is still much we don’t know about the universe.
“All the stars, planets, and galaxies seen today make up just four percent of the universe” (Moskowitz). To say this differently, 96% of the universe has not been explored yet. These 100 billion planets mentioned before are just 4% of space. Based on these numbers, the odds of other lifeforms somewhere out there seem pretty high. Consequently, The massiveness of space is the second fact known about
Dark matter and dark energy are two entities that have very little known about them, except that they make up about 95 percent of the universe. Even though this is a large part of the universe, it wasn’t even thought about until the 1960’s or the 1970’s. This is because of the fact that it is very hard to detect and almost impossible to see. Although it is impossible to see, we can see the effects of them both in our galaxy.
Comparing this galaxy’s size to are own Milky Way Galaxy, which is estimated to be around 8.5*1011 solar masses large, the Andromeda Galaxy is about 20% bigger then are own. Along with this we also know that both our own galaxy and this galaxy are on a collision course. It is estimated that in around 7.5 billion years that these two galaxies will merge together in a surely violent process. It is suspected that after this a large disc or elliptical galaxy will exist in the place of the once separate galaxies.
Our solar system, as we see it today, originally formed from the collapse of a very cold and low-density cloud of gas. The mass of this cloud was composed of 98% hydrogen and helium, 1.4% hydrogen compounds, .4% rock, and .2% metal. The nebula was thought to be a few light years across and was roughly spherical in shape. The cloud was in a state of balance, it was neither contracting or expanding, until a cataclysmic event, most likely a supernova, created a shock wave through the nebula, resulting in an area of higher mass. Once this area became more massive than the rest of the nebula it begin to collapse with the area of hig...
By 1936, astronomers had realized that the hazy balls they sometimes saw in their telescopes, which looked like stars obscured by gas, were actually galaxies (Hibbison).
What the nature of the universe? Since, kid I learned that the universe is supported through the theory of the “ Big Bang”. Today scientists are still trying to understand and answer the magnificence of the universe. I will say that the nature of the universe it is still a secret that the universe is something that increases the curiosity of humans, and maybe one day this question will be answer.
The universe, it's vastness, how it was created, and why we are a part of it amazes and astounds many people who are constantly searching for answers. Others believe they have the answers and try to persuade people to understand their view. Others don't even think about it at all.
The Universe is a collection of millions of galaxies and extends beyond human imagination. After the big bang, the universe was found to be composed of radiation and subatomic particles. Information following big bang is arguable on how galaxies formed, that is whether small particles merged to form clusters and eventually galaxies or whether the universe systematized as immense clumps of matter that later fragmented into galaxies (Nasa World book, 2013). A galaxy is a massive area of empty space full of dust, gases (mainly 75% Hydrogen and 25%Helium), atoms, about 100-200 billion stars, interstellar clouds and planets, attracted to the center by gravitational force of attraction. Based on recent research, 170 billion galaxies have been estimated to exist, with only tens of thousands been discovered (Deutsch, 2011).