Various events in space, you might have no clue about:
1. Kilonova: It is a beautiful astronomical event that happens in a binary neutron star system when the two neutron stars merge into one. To explain this imagine a scenario of two stars often referred to as a binary system, where both the stars rotate about a common Centre of mass, similar to what our Sun and Jupiter have going on, whenever the stars while completing their revolution around that point would come close to each other, the gravitational pull will pull them closer with every turn, after some time they would rotate so close to each other that they would end up merging into one. This would lead to a huge explosion, called a Kilonova. The amount of energy released during this event is approximately 10^40 Joules. While they are generally weaker compared to supernovas, which have a general energy output of 10^44Joules, they also tend to be brighter than a kilonova. Kilonovas are very rare as there are not many stars which go on to become neutron stars and even a few which are in the binary system together. Sometimes amongst the two stars, one might not even be a neutron star. In these cases, the bigger star first sheds some of its weight and undergoes a supernova, resulting in the formation of a neutron star which further goes on to a collision course with the other star due to loss of energy in gravitational waves. The supernova could also remove the other star from its orbit and stray it from its course. It is estimated the conditions for a kilonova in 1 in 10 Billion, roughly 10 in a galaxy.
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credits: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/images/the-unfolding-story-of-a-kilonova-told-in-x-rays.html
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2. Tidal Disruption Events(TDE): When a star is torn apart by the strong gravitational bite of a black hole it is called a tidal disruption event. Black holes have a very strong gravitational pull, so strong that even light has to bend. Whenever a star comes too close to such singularities, it creates gravitational tides so strong that it breaks the star apart into gas streams. Some of the dust settles into the accretion disk while the rest may be scattered into space. Such events are rare but have been recorded by different space agencies.
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| credits: https://sci.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/-/56682-artist-s-impression-of-a-tidal-disruption-event |
3. Mars is not as red as one might believe: The red planet, Mars is named so because of the color we observe from Earth. The soil appears to be red as seen from our telescopes. But we know that light undergoes atmospheric refraction, which might lead to a shift in the colors we observe. A distant object like Mars might appear red because of this reason, while if we ever go to the planet we might find the color to be a little of the butterscotch shade. All the pictures and recording of the Perseverance Rover along with the biology of our eyes allows us to formulate a theory, that the eyes would take a while to adjust in the Martian atmosphere but would eventually lose the red color once we go to the planet.
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| credits: https://www.space.com/mars-perseverance-rover-ingenuity-helicopter-first-year-photos |
4. The Sun protects our planet: Due to our negligence, we might find the UV radiation from the Sun that leaks into the Earth’s atmosphere due to CFCs, leading to much warmer climates and heat charts peaking every year. But while the Sun may appear to be frying us up it protects us from the cosmic radiation. The heliosphere of the Sun guards our solar system from interstellar radiation, the magnetic field of the sun bounces these radiations away from Earth. This is further reduced by the earth’s atmosphere, while exposure to cosmic radiation can cause cancer, degenerative diseases, etc. The amount of exposure humans get is significantly lower.
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| credits: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-domain-of-the-Sun-the-heliosphere-stretches-from-the-Sun-itself-center-of-image_fig1_314276622 |
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