After a long time, spending some time listening to interesting Youtube videos. Including astronomy. Catching up on big updates over the last few years. Few of the interesting things discovered lately:
IC1101. Largest Galaxy discovered. It is about 6 million light years in length (Elliptical), having 100 trillion stars. Estimated to be about 12 billion years old (born very close to big bang). Dying phase with Yellow tinge (rarely any new stars forming). At the center, there is a possibly the biggest Black hole ever.
TON 618. Biggest black hole (Quasar) discovered, Estimated to be 66 Billion solar masses (though some theories suggest that a black hole cannot be over 50 billion solar mass, as the accretion disk surrounding it would fade away after this mass).
Hercules Corona Borealis. Wall of gamma ray bursts. Over 10 billion light years long.
UY Scuti. Another one of the latest discoveries which was technically discovered long back, but only recently confirmed as the largest star known to us. About 5000 light years away, this massive star is so huge that if placed in place of our sun, it will eat up not just earth but even the asteroid belt. Owing to it's late stage in life, some estimates put its remaining age at just 10,000 years, after which it will shrink, perhaps to become a white dwarf.
More interesting stuff such as Observable universe, dark energy/matter, event horizon (when 2 galaxies move away from each other over the speed of light, they cannot be seen to each other) and some theories suggesting that 95% of all galaxies have already crossed over this line from us.
After Milkdromeda is formed and stabilized (maybe over 4 billion years from now), all that will be seen from inside this new galaxy will be only this galaxy. That future civilization will probably not understand multiple galaxies, local clusters, super clusters, voids, super voids! Given that our universe is barely 13.8 billion years old, we are at a very very early stage of the universe, whose life could span over 100 trillion years from now.
IC1101. Largest Galaxy discovered. It is about 6 million light years in length (Elliptical), having 100 trillion stars. Estimated to be about 12 billion years old (born very close to big bang). Dying phase with Yellow tinge (rarely any new stars forming). At the center, there is a possibly the biggest Black hole ever.
TON 618. Biggest black hole (Quasar) discovered, Estimated to be 66 Billion solar masses (though some theories suggest that a black hole cannot be over 50 billion solar mass, as the accretion disk surrounding it would fade away after this mass).
Hercules Corona Borealis. Wall of gamma ray bursts. Over 10 billion light years long.
UY Scuti. Another one of the latest discoveries which was technically discovered long back, but only recently confirmed as the largest star known to us. About 5000 light years away, this massive star is so huge that if placed in place of our sun, it will eat up not just earth but even the asteroid belt. Owing to it's late stage in life, some estimates put its remaining age at just 10,000 years, after which it will shrink, perhaps to become a white dwarf.
More interesting stuff such as Observable universe, dark energy/matter, event horizon (when 2 galaxies move away from each other over the speed of light, they cannot be seen to each other) and some theories suggesting that 95% of all galaxies have already crossed over this line from us.
After Milkdromeda is formed and stabilized (maybe over 4 billion years from now), all that will be seen from inside this new galaxy will be only this galaxy. That future civilization will probably not understand multiple galaxies, local clusters, super clusters, voids, super voids! Given that our universe is barely 13.8 billion years old, we are at a very very early stage of the universe, whose life could span over 100 trillion years from now.
