Spaced Out
Some basic space terms you’ve probably come across:
Sunday
Redshift indicates the stretching of light waves emitted from an object as it seemingly flies away from an observer. When done by a star it indicates that is moving away from Earth or the observation point. This is the opposite of a blueshift, and both are related to the Doppler Effect.
Monday
Black holes, which are typically found at the center of galaxies (including ours), or seen after large stars burn all their fuel and collapse under their own weight, have gravitational pulls so strong that nothing can escape, even light itself.
Tuesday
A singularity, which theoretically lives inside every black hole, is a zero-volume point of infinite density and infinite curvature of spacetime, such that “all laws of physics break down.” So don’t feel too bad if you have a hard time imagining these.
Wednesday
Quasars are the result of supermassive black holes pulling in such enormous quantities of matter that the friction from material spiraling into the black hole causes it to glow more brightly than anything else in the universe, helped by bright-burning magnetized jets of matter emitted at nearly the speed of light.
Thursday
A supernova, the largest known explosion in the universe (sometimes brighter than entire galaxies), is often caused by the final stage of a supermassive star’s death. As the heavier elements at the star’s core collapse under gravity, lighter elements are thrown violently outward. The remaining hyper-compacted core, known as a neutron star or pulsar, exhibits the universe’s strongest known magnetic fields.
Friday
Dark matter’s existence must be inferred from the fact that without it, all known galaxies would have spun apart ages ago, since all their observable matter could not possibly generate enough gravity to hold them together. But although it does not interact with light or electromagnetic forces and is hence very tough to detect, dark matter is likely six times more prevalent in the universe than observed matter based on its apparent gravimetric influence.
Saturday
Wormholes are theoretical shortcuts between two distant points in space. While possible under Einstein’s general theory of relativity, no natural wormholes have ever been detected.