Black hole, Pulsar, comets and asteroids: the most dangerous and beautiful places in the Universe
Man has always sought to find materials that leave no chance for their competitors. Since ancient times, scientists have been looking for the hardest materials in the world, the lightest and heaviest. The thirst for discovery led to the discovery of ideal gas and ideal black body. We present to you the most amazing substances in the world.
1. The blackest substance
The blackest substance in the world is called Vantablack and consists of a collection of carbon nanotubes (see carbon and its allotropic modifications). Simply put, the material consists of an innumerable set of "hairs", hitting which, the light bounces from one tube to another. Thus, about 99.965% of the light flux is absorbed and only a negligible part is reflected back outward.
The discovery of Vantablack opens up broad prospects for the application of this material in astronomy, electronics and optics.
2. The most flammable substance
Chlorine trifluoride is the most flammable substance ever known to mankind. It is the strongest oxidizing agent and reacts with almost all chemical elements. Chlorine trifluoride can burn through concrete and easily ignite glass! The use of chlorine trifluoride is practically impossible due to its phenomenal flammability and the impossibility of ensuring the safety of use.
3. The most poisonous substance
The most powerful poison is botulinum toxin. We know it under the name Botox, this is how it is called in cosmetology, where it found its main application. Botulinum toxin is a chemical secreted by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. In addition to the fact that botulinum toxin is the most poisonous substance, it also has the largest molecular weight among proteins. The phenomenal toxicity of the substance is evidenced by the fact that only 0.00002 mg min / l of botulinum toxin is enough to make the affected area deadly for a person for half a day.
4. The hottest substance
This is the so-called quark-gluon plasma. The substance was created by the collision of gold atoms at near light speed. Quark-gluon plasma has a temperature of 4 trillion degrees Celsius. For comparison, this figure is 250,000 times higher than the temperature of the Sun! Unfortunately, the lifetime of a substance is limited to one trillionth of one trillionth of a second.
5. The most corrosive acid
In this nomination, the champion is fluoride-antimic acid H. Fluoride-antimic acid is 2 × 10 16 (two hundred quintillion) times more caustic than sulphuric acid... This is very active substance which can explode if small amounts of water are added. The fumes of this acid are deadly poisonous.
6. The most explosive substance
The most explosive substance is heptanitrocubane. It is very expensive and is only used for scientific research. But a slightly less explosive HMX is successfully used in military affairs and in geology when drilling wells.
7. The most radioactive substance
"Polonium-210" is an isotope of polonium that does not exist in nature, but is made by man. It is used to create miniature, but at the same time, very powerful energy sources. It has a very short half-life and is therefore capable of causing severe radiation sickness.
8. The heaviest substance
This is, of course, fullerite. Its hardness is almost 2 times higher than that of natural diamonds. You can read more about fullerite in our article The hardest materials in the world.
9. The strongest magnet
The strongest magnet in the world is made up of iron and nitrogen. At present, details about this substance are not available to the general public, but it is already known that the new super-magnet is 18% more powerful than the strongest magnets in use today - neodymium. Neodymium magnets are made from neodymium, iron and boron.
10. The most fluid substance
Superfluid Helium II has almost no viscosity at temperatures close to absolute zero. This property is due to its unique property ooze and overflow from a container made of any solid material. Helium II has the potential to be used as an ideal thermal conductor in which heat is not dissipated.
In fact, there are things that are really worth fearing, and they are everywhere, virtually hidden from our sight. The truth will not leave anyone indifferent, and perhaps it will amaze someone to the depths of the soul and make them think seriously.
Fast moving black holes
Black holes are invisible space killers. Ask any person what people think is the most frightening cosmic phenomenon. Very many, if not most, will call black holes, because this expression is so replicated in the mass media that we have absolutely no doubt about their existence, while having a very vague idea of what these black holes really are. For many, black holes are something like cosmic Koloboks, no matter how comical and primitive it may sound.
First of all, black holes are classified by size. The smallest and largest, huge and negligible, phenomena of unknown origin. Micro black holes exist only in theoretical calculations, medium-sized holes owe their appearance to the destruction or merging of star clusters, it is this scenario of the formation of black holes 
looks the most traditional for most people. A black hole cannot absorb everything that surrounds it, since its gravitational field is rather limited.
Traditionally, it was believed that only supermassive black holes could wander in outer space, rushing at an incredible speed of nine million miles per hour. It's just an unrealistic figure, in life most often young children operate with such numbers, proving to their friends who is cooler and how many times.
However, this phenomenon does not pose a real threat to us. Objects rushing at great speed are not particularly dangerous, their collision with other celestial bodies is dangerous, while the direction of movement changes, and we have hundreds of invisible cosmic bodies circling in outer space. The real threat is the likelihood of a hole colliding with something in its path, as a result of which this "something" will rush to our planet at a speed of nine hundred million miles per hour.
Supermassive black holes
Supermassive black holes do exist and are potentially the most dangerous phenomena in the universe. By definition, the density of black holes is so high that everything within the hole itself inevitably falls into its gravitational field. Based on the name of these black holes, it is easy to assume that the mass of these celestial giants is enormous, no less than the mass of four million Suns. Today we are only able to determine the presence of black holes by observing the movement of celestial bodies in a certain place. Depending on the speed and direction of movement, it can be quite confidently assumed that at a certain moment the black hole will overtake them and sweep them away like a hurricane.
At the center of any galaxy are stars and gas clusters rotating at high speed. According to scientists, this position of celestial objects implies the presence in the center of any galaxy, including ours, a supermassive black hole. In principle, we have nothing to fear, because our planet is located at a fairly large distance from the "danger zone". However, the danger lies elsewhere: the problem is that black holes are fueled by gas and eventually stop moving. Getting into the gas zone creates an increase in the volume of the hole itself, then scientists say that the hole is activated and turns into an "active galactic nucleus". During this period, these "galactic nuclei" turn into powerful sources radiation devouring all the gas that forms stars in its galaxy. As a rule, this process stops when the hole has nothing to "feed" on and, in the end, it closes. However, during the phase of the "active galactic nucleus", the process of star formation is sharply activated, this is what is called a burst of star formation. Such stars are quite large and massive, many of them turn into supernovae. 
destroying everything that can get in their way. In essence, it turns out that supermassive black holes are littering their own galaxy with tons of explosives.
Red planets
Depending on the scientific theory prevalent in your school years, our solar system consisted of eight or nine planets. However, it is noteworthy that this number includes only planets, the behavior of which can be brought to some kind of standard. Red planets are rebels and "bad guys" of outer space, who do not care about the concept of "orbit" and simply do not care about the rules of behavior of other planets. The red planets do not rotate around their axis, they wander through the galaxy until some other cosmic body meets on their way, which either stops the movement of the Red planet or stops itself under its influence. According to the most common theory of the origin of the red planets, they were displaced from their orbits due to their uncontrollable behavior.
Red planets are quite frightening, but something about them is simply terrifying. For example, their number. There are twice as many of these planets in our galaxy as there are stars. Impressive, isn't it? The second is their size, which is not inferior to the size of Jupiter. Now imagine two hundred billion Jupiters, not tied to a strict orbit, chaotically moving through our Universe. God either has a very strange sense of humor or is a huge fan of pinball. The collision of a red planet with a foreign object does not always have dire consequences, but sometimes it can cause a real disaster. It is believed that the red planet is capable of displacing another heavenly body from its orbit, sending it on a random wandering in outer space.
Hypernova
As the name implies, a hypernova is something like a supernova, but with a much larger diameter. Hypernovae result from the collapse of the core of a supermassive star directly into a black hole. The released energy reaches an incredible speed, creating by its movement two jet streams of plasma moving at the speed of light, while emitting powerful gamma radiation. This can only be compared with a shot from a cannon, but on a completely different scale.
However, there is good news: this can only happen in the largest stars of the galaxy, in giants hundreds of times the mass of the Sun. Such huge celestial bodies are extremely rare and the formation of a hypernova, perhaps once every two hundred million years. The bad news is that for Earth, the date of the fatal collision is approaching inexorably.
Quite possibly Eta Carinae, the nearest object capable of colliding with a hypernova, will simply explode and collapse. However, for us, these events are unlikely to have serious consequences due to the huge distance of seventy-five hundred light years. If this happened in the vicinity of our planet, a plasma explosion would sweep away all living things from the face of the Earth. Fortunately, our solar system is somewhat similar to a guarded residence, and terrible giants keep a fairly safe distance from our planet. Perhaps it was the hypernova that at some point caused the destruction of all life on earth, which was later called the Ordovician-Silurian extinction.
Ecology
The cosmos is full of bizarre and even scary phenomena, ranging from stars that suck life out of their own kind and ending with giant black holes that are billions of times larger and more massive than our Sun. Below are the scariest things in outer space.
The planet is a ghost
Many astronomers have said that the huge planet Fomalhaut B has sunk into oblivion, but it seems to be alive again.
Back in 2008, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope announced the discovery of a huge planet orbiting the very bright star Fomalhaut, only 25 light-years from Earth. Other researchers later questioned the discovery, saying that scientists had actually discovered a giant cloud of dust being displayed.
However, according to the latest data from Hubble, the planet is being discovered over and over again. Other experts are carefully studying the system surrounding the star, so the zombie planet may be buried more than once before a final verdict is made on this issue.
Zombie Stars
Some stars literally come back to life in violent and dramatic ways. Astronomers classify these zombie stars as Type Ia supernovae, which generate huge and powerful explosions that send the "insides" of stars into the universe.
Type Ia supernovae explode from binary systems that consist of at least one white dwarf - a tiny, superdense star that has stopped going through nuclear fusion. White dwarfs are "dead", but as such they cannot remain in a binary system.
They can return to life, albeit for a short time, in a giant explosion along with a supernova, sucking life from their companion star or by merging with it.
Stars are vampires
Just like the vampires from fiction, some stars manage to stay young, sucking the vitality from the hapless victims. These vampire stars are known as "blue stragglers" and "look" much younger than their neighbors with whom they were formed.
When they explode, the temperature is much higher and the color is "much bluer". Scientists believe this is the case because they suck out huge amounts of hydrogen from nearby stars.
Giant black holes
Black holes may seem like science fiction objects - they are extremely dense, and the gravity in them is so strong that even light cannot escape from them if it comes close enough to them.
But these are very real objects that are quite common throughout the universe. In fact, astronomers believe that supermassive black holes are at the center of most, if not all galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Supermassive black holes are mind-boggling in size. Scientists recently discovered two black holes, each with a mass equal to the mass of 10 billion of our Suns.
Incomprehensible cosmic blackness
If you are afraid of the dark, then being in deep space is clearly not for you. It is a place of "extreme blackness" far from the comforting lights of the house. Outer space is black, according to scientists, because it is empty.
Despite the trillions of stars scattered throughout the cosmos, many molecules are at great distances from each other to interact and scatter.
Spiders and witch brooms
Heaven is inhabited by witches, glowing skulls and all-seeing eyes, in fact, you can imagine any object. All of these forms we see in a diffuse collection of glowing gas and dust called nebulae, which are scattered throughout the universe.
The visual images that appear before us are examples of a special phenomenon in which the human brain recognizes the shapes of random images.
Killer asteroids
The phenomena described in the previous paragraph may be creepy or take on an abstract form, but they do not pose a threat to humanity. The same cannot be said about large asteroids that fly at a distance close to the Earth.
Experts say that the asteroid, 1 kilometer wide, has the power to destroy our planet in a collision. And even an asteroid as small as 40 meters can cause serious harm if it enters a populated area.
The impact of an asteroid is one of the factors that affects life on Earth. It is likely that 65 million years ago, it was an asteroid 10 kilometers in size that destroyed the dinosaurs. Fortunately for us, scientists are scanning celestial rocks, and there are ways to redirect dangerous space rocks away from Earth, if, of course, danger is detected in time.
Active sun
The sun gives us life, but our star is not always that good. Serious storms play out on it from time to time, which can have a potentially devastating effect on radio communications, satellite navigation and power grids.
V Lately such solar flares are especially common because the sun has entered its particularly active phase of the 11-year cycle. The researchers expect solar activity to peak in 2013.
How many times on a warm summer evening we raised our heads up and admired the flickering points in the sky. How many times have you dreamed of being outside the Earth and seeing the frozen and beautiful Universe with your own eyes? It attracts people for thousands of years, forcing them to overcome gravity and make a breakthrough in scientific thinking.
The universe is beautiful. But she is not as sweet and safe as it seems at first glance.
The sun is our life and our death
The sun is the heart of our system. This is a huge nuclear reactor, the energy of which is enough to bloom life on an entire planet. The boiling sea of gas mesmerizes with beauty, but it is deadly beauty.The temperature of the sun's surface reaches five thousand degrees Celsius, and the temperature at its center can be more than tens of millions of degrees.
Loops of burning gas - a consequence of the planet's electrical activity - burst out of the Sun for thousands of kilometers. These prominences are not just beautiful sight. They carry a huge amount of radiation into space, from which the Earth's magnetic field protects us.
The energy produced by one prominence is more than the energy of 10 million Earth's volcanoes. And the planet Earth will easily pass through such a loop, leaving more free space.
If someday airlines agree to make interplanetary flights, those who wish will have to fly to the Sun for 20 years.
The sun is our life and our death. Today, thanks to his energy, thousands of life forms flourish on our planet. But it all ends someday. The sun will die, most likely, turning into a white dwarf. Even if it does not absorb our planet, then its light and heat will not be enough to support life on Earth.
Comets - deadly messengers of life
Comets are the free vagabonds of our universe. These are small cosmic bodies that revolve around the stars. The comet is a beautiful sight. The gaze rivets to her "tail". But this is only dust and evaporating ice, which are heated by the rays of the Sun.Scientists substantiate the theory that life on our planet originated from comets. After all, where there is water, there is life. It is believed that comets that crashed into the Earth during its formation brought water and biological material with them, which became the building base for all life on Earth.
But today comets are a threat to our existence. If one of them crashes into the Earth, life in all its forms could end forever.
Asteroids are insidious killers
Asteroids are the nomads of our solar system. These are the wreckage of dead planets. These are bodies whose mass is less than that of planets, they have an irregular shape, there is no atmosphere, but there may be satellites.An encounter with an asteroid can be fatal to the planet. Both small and large, they pose a threat to humanity. Large asteroids are easier to detect, but even if a space body more than three kilometers in diameter crashes into the Earth, an entire civilization could die.
Scientists suggest that this is how dinosaurs became extinct on Earth.
Supernova - death and rebirth
Stars, like people, they live and die. When there is not enough fuel for a nuclear reaction, the star becomes unstable. Its core shatters, and deadly energy bursts out.The death of a star is an extraordinary and very dangerous sight. The upper layers of the star and radiation are thrown into space for many millions of kilometers. The release of deadly particles would destroy all life in its path.
If the explosion of a star was relatively close to the Earth, we would not be able to survive the catastrophic consequences of the influence of radiation on living things.
But in the Universe, nothing is wasted. There is order in this chaos. During a supernova explosion, new chemical elements are formed. These particles are construction material for new life forms. Calcium in our bones, iron in our blood, air in our lungs - these are the elements of a once deceased star, the death of which gave life to new forms of life.
Black hole - incredible gravity
The black hole is a consequence of a deceased star with a huge mass. Black holes are the most mysterious inhabitants of space. The attraction of this object is so great that nothing can escape from its embrace, not even light. Scientists can only assume what is inside the black hole.According to many theories, there is no time, space and matter inside, and all the laws of physics cease to exist. Many people think that a black hole pulls in everything that comes its way. But it is not so. There is a certain distance - the event horizon. If you go further beyond it, nothing will be able to escape from the deadly embrace of the black hole.
There is an assumption that our entire Galaxy may be inside a huge black hole. But to imagine this, one fantasy is not enough, and the mind can be shaken.
Pulsar - a space mystery
Pulsars can be called distant cousins of black holes, because they were formed in the same way after the death of a star. The core of the star shrank so much that it turned out to be a small bright star.Despite their size, pulsars are very energetic. Radiation on the pulsar is greater than on the Sun.
The pulsar spins incredibly fast - about 30 revolutions per second. It is unimaginably dense. In total, a teaspoon of the substance can weigh hundreds of millions of tons. The pulsar's magnetic field is several trillion times greater than that of the Earth.
Nebulae are the frozen music of the universe
Nebulae are frozen clouds of cosmic gas and dust. This is an incredibly beautiful sight. Nebulae can rightfully be considered a factory for the production of stars, since they contain all the necessary elements to build new stars. They are just waiting for the wave from the explosion of the star to push them into motion.Nebulae are located at incredible distances from Earth - thousands of light years. This is so far away that it is difficult for our minds to imagine these numbers.
Quasars - chronicles of the past light years
Quasar is the most distant and deadliest object in the universe. It is brighter than hundreds of galaxies. At its center is a huge black hole that is larger than billions of suns. Quasars give off an incredible amount of energy. There are suggestions that quasars can emit energy up to a hundred times more than all stars in our galaxy, and this is in a relatively small area of space.A quasar moves through space at an incredible speed - about 80% of the speed of light.
Quasars are a window to the past. After all, their light reached us for millions of years. Some of them may no longer exist.
The universe is beautiful. She bewitches with secrets, power and scale. Who are we by cosmic standards? Not even ants or grains of sand.
Our solar system is located on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy, far from important events and breaking news. Even if it disappears in an instant, no one will notice.
But I really want to believe that humanity will be able to discover the secrets of space, find new worlds and remain in the history of our Universe.
Since ancient times, the stars have attracted people with their inaccessibility and beauty. Science has been studying the stars for centuries. But what do we know about them? What is known about space?
It turns out that there are a lot of space objects in the Universe that potentially pose a threat to our planet. Scientists have been observing eerie bursts of gamma radiation for decades from the explosion of stars in the distant corners of the universe. As a rule, such explosions occur at intervals of several years. These are rare events, and they occur mainly in distant galaxies, which are many billions of parsecs away from us. Due to the discovery of the most powerful gamma-ray bursts, scientists have established a new class of astronomical bodies - hypernova stars. Such stars surpass their counterparts by several hundred times. The galaxies in which hypernova stars appear are the most dangerous corners in the universe.
Astrophysicists, based on the latest research, argue that bursts of such gamma rays can interrupt life on Earth. This theory explains a lot, for example, repeated mass extinctions on Earth, including the death of dinosaurs. Comets and asteroids have long been considered the main threat from space. However, the staff of Washburn University presented a report that argued that death of all living things should be expected from deep space, and it is almost impossible to defend against it.
Supernova explosions and star collisions result in huge emissions of gamma rays. V distant corners In this case, the galaxies penetrate waves that can deplete the ozone layer in the stratosphere. This opens the way for deadly radiation that can destroy all life on Earth. Researchers believe that this has already happened, and more than once.
Scientists have conducted research and found that large stars are the cause of such powerful explosions. According to rough calculations, the weight of hypernovae is estimated at one hundred or more solar masses. There is a hypothetical danger for life on Earth due to the outburst of a nearby hypernova star. According to astronomers' calculations, such events for our Galaxy, on average, should occur once every two hundred million years.
A hypernova can easily destroy all living organisms on the planet, even bacteria, while being at a distance of over three thousand light years from Earth. The mysterious star Eta Carinae is the closest candidate for the hypernova title from Earth. It is the most mysterious and mysterious star in our Galaxy. It constantly attracts the interest of astronomers from all over the world. This interest is not accidental, scientists believe that Eta Carinae carries a threat to our planet. It has already gained a mass close to critical, and in the near future it will shake the Universe with an explosion of unknown power.
This Carina is currently one of the brightest celestial bodies in the Milky Way. Its luminosity exceeds the solar one by five million times. This dangerous star can be compared to a dormant volcano that can wake up at any moment, and its consequences will be dire. Scientists have noted Eta's activity over the past few months. According to astronomers, the star is somehow four million times brighter than the Sun. Regular powerful flares throw whole clouds of some stellar matter into the atmosphere. One gets the impression that the star will soon destroy itself. Researchers suggest that the star can self-destruct at a "young age." The duration of the existence of stars is estimated at billions of years, but such large and bright as Eta, may well burn out in one million years. This is considered a very short timeframe by cosmic standards.
The death of a star is a giant explosion that literally tears it apart into many pieces, scattering trillions of kilometers. This one has dimensions and mass that exceed the Sun many times, so it can die as a hypernova and supernova, which, in terms of its brightness and the amount of emitted energy, surpasses the entire huge Galaxy.
It is extremely difficult to describe the consequences of such a cataclysm. However, scientists argue that if the star were closer to the Earth, then the biosphere of our planet would experience what microbes experience under an ultraviolet lamp.
At the moment, according to scientists, Eta is in the same state as 7500 years ago. This is exactly the amount of time it took for the radiation quanta to get to the Earth. The same fate awaits this dangerous and unique celestial body, people will learn in the coming centuries.
The star Canis Majoris, which is located in the constellation Big Dog... It is currently the largest star in the universe. It is so large that if we reduce the Earth to one centimeter, and reduce in proportion to Canis Majoris, then its size will be approximately 2.2 kilometers. At the moment, the largest star in the Universe has lost more than half of its mass. This suggests that the star is aging and its hydrogen fuel is drying up. After it dries up, the star will most likely explode into a supernova and reincarnate as either a black hole or a neutral star.
There are conflicting disputes about the properties of this star. According to one version, the star Canis Majoris is a huge red hypergiant. According to another version, it is a huge red supergiant, the diameter of which is only 600 times greater than the Sun's, and not 2000. And also, how much time is left for this star, and when will it explode.
Astronomers believe that our planet has already faced the consequences of the explosion of such a star in the past. If a flux of gamma radiation enters our planet, it will cause the extinction of all terrestrial organisms. According to one hypothesis, this is what caused the extinction of fifty percent of organisms about 500 million years ago, when the Ordovician extinction occurred.
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