Science Strangeries

Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall The Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall is the largest known superstructure in the universe. It is a huge group of galaxies forming a giant sheet-like pattern which is about 10 billion light-years long, 7.2 billion light-years wide, and almost 1 billion light-years thick. It is about 10 billion light-years away in the constellations of Hercules and Corona Borealis, hence its name. It was discovered in November 2013 by mapping gamma-ray bursts. They are very luminous explosions of distant, massive stars, the most powerful explosions in the universe. A typical burst releases more energy in less than a tenth of a second than the Sun will in its whole life of 10 billion years.

Critical temperature Critical temperature (of a substance) can be defined as the highest possible temperature value at which the substance can exist as a liquid. At temperatures above the critical temperature of a given gaseous substance, it can no longer be liquified, regardless of the amount of pressure applied to it.

Superconductivity Superconductivity is the property of certain materials to conduct direct current (DC) electricity without energy loss when they are cooled below a critical temperature (referred to as Tc). These materials also expel magnetic fields as they transition to the superconducting state.

Active Galactic Nucleus An active galactic nucleus, or AGN, is an extremely bright central region of a galaxy that is dominated by the light emitted by dust and gas as it falls into a black hole. An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a small region at the centre of some galaxies that is far brighter than can be explained by the stellar population alone. The extremely luminous central region is emitting so much radiation that it can outshine the rest of the galaxy altogether. AGNs emit radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays. This radiation is produced by the action of a central supermassive black hole that is devouring material that gets too close to it. A galaxy hosting an AGN is called an ‘active galaxy’.

Supermassive Black Hole A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. Black holes are a class of astronomical objects that have undergone gravitational collapse, leaving behind spheroidal regions of space from which nothing can escape, not even light. Observational evidence indicates that almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. For example, the Milky Way has a supermassive black hole in its Galactic Center, corresponding to the radio source Sagittarius A. Accretion of interstellar gas onto supermassive black holes is the process responsible for powering Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and quasars.

Humans are capable of producing venom Believe it or not, while humans do not currently produce venom, technically, we could. In fact, all reptiles and mammals have that capability, according to an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Basically, we have all the tools we need, and it’s up to evolution to get us there. We told you—these science facts are pretty amazing!

Plastic can end up as vanilla flavoring Researchers have figured out how to transform plastic bottles into vanilla flavoring with genetically engineered bacteria, according to a 2021 study published in the journal Green Chemistry. The authors of the study explain that the demand for vanillin is “growing rapidly,” given that it’s found in a wide variety of food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, cleaning, and herbicide products. But don’t expect to be eating plastic-bottle-flavored ice cream anytime soon: This research only demonstrated that this conversion is possible—not whether it is safe for human consumption.

Solar flares are incredibly powerful The energy solar flares release is equivalent to millions of 100-megaton atomic bombs exploding at once, according to NASA. It’s a good thing the Earth’s atmosphere protects us from their radiation.

Water can exist in three states at once This is called the triple boil—or triple point—and it is a specific temperature and pressure where materials exist as a gas, a liquid, and a solid simultaneously. The triple point, which is also the only situation where all three states of matter can coexist, is different for every material, according to the University of California, Santa Cruz. Water reaches its triple point at just above freezing (0.1 degree Celsius) and at a pressure of 0.006 atm.

A laser can get trapped in water A cool thing called “total internal reflection” happens when you point a laser beam at a jet of flowing water. To demonstrate this phenomenon, PBS Learning Media released a video in which a laser is positioned on one side of a clear tank of water. When the light travels through the water, it is slowed by the heavier particles in the water, effectively “trapping” the laser beam in the water. Even as the water flow is gradually decreased, the laser beam remains contained inside the jet, until it eventually disappears when the water is turned off completely. Speaking of lasers, did you know that your iPhone can be hacked with a laser pointer? You do now!

The Event Horizon The event horizon is the spherical outer boundary of a black hole loosely considered to be its "surface." It is the point, according to NASA, that the gravitational influence of the black hole becomes so great that not even light is fast enough to escape it. As a result of the fact that Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity tells us that no signal can exceed the speed of light in a vacuum (c) humanity can never hope to obtain a signal from the one-way boundary that is an event horizon. As such event horizons effectively act as cosmic gatekeepers preventing us from ever directly observing the secrets that lie at the heart of black holes. Yet they can reveal a great deal about the environment around them.

It can rain diamonds on other planets The atmospheres in Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn have such extreme pressure that they can crystallize carbon atoms and turn them into diamonds, American Scientist reports. How do we know this science fact? Researchers were able to create the correct conditions in a lab to prove this occurs on Neptune and Uranus. Separately, other researchers speculate that it may rain as much as 2.2 million pounds of diamonds on parts of Saturn every year.

There are more trees on Earth than stars in our galaxy Here’s a cool space fact (and an Earth fact) we bet you didn’t know: NASA experts believe there could be anywhere from 100 billion to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. However, a 2015 paper published in the journal Nature estimated that the number of trees around the world is much higher: 3.04 trillion.

Hot water freezes faster than cold water This may seem counterintuitive, but it’s called the Mpemba effect. Scientists now believe this is because the velocities of water particles have a specific disposition while they’re hot that allows them to freeze more readily. If proven correct, this finding could also be applied to everyday things, like cooling down electronic devices, according to research out of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

The Big Splat In the far future, galaxies will eventually drift so far apart that light from one can never reach another. In fact, as stars get old and die, a time will come when there's no light — or heat — left. The universe will be a dark, cold, empty void. It sounds like the end of everything, but according to one theory, it's actually the beginning of the next universe in an endlessly repeating cycle. Remember the braneworld theory? This is what happens when one cold, empty brane collides with another — which, given enough time, it's bound to do eventually. Cosmologists Neil Turok and Paul Steinhardt believe such a collision would generate enough energy to create a whole new universe. They call this the "ekpyrotic theory," though physicist Michio Kaku has more evocatively dubbed it the "Big Splat." @Sci_Strangeries

The White Dots in This Image Are Not Stars or Galaxies. They're Black Holes! The image above may look like a fairly normal picture of the night sky, but what you're looking at is a lot more special than just glittering stars. Each of those white dots is an active supermassive black hole. And each of those black holes is devouring material at the heart of a galaxy millions of light-years away - that's how they could be pinpointed at all. @Sci_Strangeries

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Scientists Mimic Black Hole Evolution in Bathtub-Like Experiment. The black hole simulation strongly resembled the vortex that forms when yanking the plug in a bath. Using this technique, the researchers showed that when waves are sent into an analog black hole, the properties of the black hole can change significantly