BREATHTAKING TRIP BEYOND OUR SOLAR SYSTEM.

There are a lot of things outside our solar system. Every one would know that, of course. There are galaxies, few asteroids and comets here and there and the terrifying black holes. But do you know about Quasars, SGW or Binary stars? Well, without wasting any time, lets get started. 

Introduction:

As we discussed before, a lot of things are there outside our solar system. Surprisingly, some of the objects which are further than Neptune in distance revolve around the Sun. These objects are called Kuiper belt. We will try to discover these things in detail in this blog. So, fasten your seat belts as we fly the biggest and the most fascinating trip ever- the universe.

We will discuss:

1. Kuiper belt

2. Galaxies

3. What and the whereabouts of the fascinating things going around the universe

 

Kuiper Belt:

•Kuiper Belt is a region in our space shaped more like ellipse than a circle, is shaped like asteroid belt.

• Kuiper belt consist of rock and mostly ice chunks of various substances.

•These substances are believed to be the leftovers of making the solar system.

•Pluto, once considered as the ninth planet of our solar system, is the considered as a part of Kuiper belt.

 .There, Pluto is the biggest planet followed by Eris and Makemake. These are scientifically called trans-Neptunian planets.

 

Galaxies:

•In the whole universe, there are billions of galaxies.

•Galaxies are collection of billions of trillions of stars.

• There are many types of galaxies-spiral, barred spiral, elliptical and irregular.

•Galaxies are grouped as the clusters which in turn is grouped as superclusters.

 

Milky Way:

•Milky way is our home galaxy. It consist of 200 billion stars. It is 150000 light years across and 1500 light years thick.

•Our sun is 26000 light years from the center of the milky way where a supermassive black hole is present.

•Our sun has circled it 6 times around it. Milky way moves with the speed of 300km/sec.

 

Andromeda galaxy ( M31):

•Andromeda is the largest galaxy in our local group, followed by milky way even though some scientist suggest it is not.

•It is about 2.5 million light years far from milky way.

•It is predicted that these two galaxies will merge in 5 billion years. It is about the twice of milky way in size.

 

Fascinating things that will blow your mind:

1. Quasars

2. Sloan great wall

3. Heliosphere

4. Dark matter

5. Accretion disk

6. Binary stars

 

Quasars:

•The word might be small but quasars are one of the biggest body ever known.

•They are active and young galaxies which emit light which is so intense that you might see it on the other side of the universe.

•It is about 1.5 light years in length.

Sloan great wall:

•The record of the largest structure was previously held by the Sloan Great Wall (SGW).

• It is 1.37 billion light years in length.

•Scientists have felt that it is simply the 3 clusters of the galaxies which appear to be aligned.

 

Heliosphere:

•The heliosphere is a magnetic sphere which extends beyond Pluto, is caused by the sun’s solar winds.

•The heliosphere acts as a kind of shield which protects the solar system from the cosmic rays, which are very dangerous interstellar particles.

•Astronomers believe that other solar systems have their own heliosphere caused by different stars.

 

Dark matter:

•84.5% of the universe is dark matter. Dark matter is one of the abundance substance in the universe.

•Dark matter neither emits nor absorbs light or other electromagnetic radiation.

•Dark matter plays a very important role in the formation of galaxies and its shape.

•It only produces the gravitational effects.

 

Accretion disk:

•An accretion disk is a relatively flat, rapidly rotating disk of gas surrounding a black hole, a newborn star, or any massive object that attracts and swallows matter.

•It also expect to show evidence of active planet formation. Beta pictoris is an star know to have a accretion disk.

 

Binary stars (Twin stars):

•A binary star system is a system where two stars orbit around each other.

•Binary star are very common, majority in fact.

•Alpha centauri is a binary star system orbiting another sun-like star. The orbit they revolve is a elliptical path. They come as close as 11 au and go as far as 35 au.

 

 

By - N B Ritesh Varshan.