The Whirlpool Galaxy, aka Messier 51, is like the rockstar of celestial bodies, always looking perfect and getting snapped by telescopes left and right. It\u2019s not that far from us either, just some 23 million light years away. And it\u2019s not just a pretty face. The real kicker is its cosmic tango with its BFF galaxy, NGC 5195. Their gravitational dance leads to some serious star-making action, giving those spiral arms a dazzling \u201cstars being born\u201d vibe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2. Hexagonal Storm on Saturn<\/strong> 3. The Traveller \u2013 Oumuamua<\/strong> 4. Stephan\u2019s Quintet of Galaxies<\/strong> 5. Slug on Pluto<\/strong> 6. Planet with CO2<\/strong> 7. Birth of a New Moon<\/strong> 8. Space Butterfly<\/strong> a crazy place. Every day, scientists discover many bizarre things that bring up more questions than answers, make us fear the unknown, and leave us awestruck. 1. Whirlpool Galaxy (Messier 51)The Whirlpool Galaxy, aka Messier 51, is like the rockstar of celestial bodies, always looking perfect and getting snapped by telescopes left and right. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-useful-info"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Saturn\u2019s massive hexagon is probably the coolest and weirdest thing in the whole solar system. Picture this majestic storm, big enough to fit four Earths inside, just spinning there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This mind-blowing storm swirls around in Saturn\u2019s atmosphere, where the winds are all over the place. The vortex at Saturn\u2019s north pole, right inside the hexagon, is spinning faster than the winds outside the hexagon, which creates this epic storm show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Strangest-Things-Scientists-Have-Discovered-In-Space-2.webp\")
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On one chilly October night in 2017, the University of Hawaii\u2019s Pan-STARRS1 telescope stumbled upon something wild. At first, they thought it was a comet, but something didn\u2019t feel right, so they thought, \u201cAh, must be an asteroid!\u201d But guess what? Wasn\u2019t that either? This space thing was shaped like a rod, and it was getting brighter as it twirled. It turns out this space rock was not from our solar system. It\u2019s an outsider, a traveler, that\u2019s presumably older than our whole solar system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Strangest-Things-Scientists-Have-Discovered-In-Space-3-2048x1152-1.jpg\")
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Back in the day, astronomers thought Stephan\u2019s Quintet of galaxies was just some gas clouds in the Milky Way, but with better telescopes, it became clear that something else was afoot. The galaxies appear to be physically linked, like space besties holding hands. But according to their Redshifts, the distance between them should be the same, but after gathering more data, it seems as if four of them are 300 million lightyears away, and one\u2019s just 30 million lightyears away. If neighboring galaxies have such crazy different Redshifts, forget using this method to guesstimate distance accurately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Strangest-Things-Scientists-Have-Discovered-In-Space-4.jpg\")
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Pluto\u2019s got a killer landscape, at least from what we can tell. It\u2019s not something you can witness on Earth but the closest comparison would be a floating iceberg in the ocean, but the ocean is a frigid wasteland instead. That\u2019s pretty much what Pluto\u2019s vibe is. In 2016, NASA dropped this hilarious pic of a rock leaving a trail behind it as if it were a slug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Strangest-Things-Scientists-Have-Discovered-In-Space-5-edited.webp\")
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A while back, stargazers stumbled upon a Saturn-sized planet, some 700 light years away, that has CO2 in its atmosphere. That\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve spotted CO2 outside our solar neighborhood! The James Webb Space Telescope also caught faint whiffs of methane, water vapor, and more CO2 around a couple of other planets. It\u2019s like a cosmic sniff test for potential life on those exoplanets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Strangest-Things-Scientists-Have-Discovered-In-Space-6-2048x1152-1.jpg\")
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Ever seen a new moon pop into existence? Probably not, right? This process usually takes millions of years to complete, but seeing just a glimpse is more than enough for a species like us. So the Cassini spacecraft snagged some mind-blowing pics on its way to Saturn and found what seems to be a fresh moon in the making, dubbed \u201cPeggy.\u201d It\u2019s still an infant, like 0.8 km small, and it\u2019s doing its thing just outside Saturn\u2019s rings. Scientists think these moons happen when icy bits in the rings get shoved to the outer edges. Space is wild!<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Strangest-Things-Scientists-Have-Discovered-In-Space-7.jpg\")
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These awesome pics snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope have become legendary. The astronomers call it the Twin Jet Nebula, or PN M2-9 if you hate fun. But honestly, the name Space Butterfly is a perfect fit for this phenomenon. I mean, just look at it! This nebula\u2019s got a double star system, making it a bipolar planetary nebula. The glowy shells in the pics? That\u2019s the last hurrah of a dying star, shedding its outer layers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/supertrendresponse.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Strangest-Things-Scientists-Have-Discovered-In-Space-8.png\")
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