Scary Places in the Universe - Top 10 Countdown

We live in a massive universe, and there are a lot of unknown things out there. Since the dawn of modern astrophysics in the late 20th century, scientists have set out to explore and understand the cosmos in ways that were never thought about. We now know that the universe is full of weird and dangerous places. Looking at the universe one may begin to wonder if it was really created for us. Here is my list of the top most dangerous places in the universe. The places mentioned here have been thoroughly investigated by Nasa and other astronomical organizations, they have been mentioned and discussed in details in significant articles from Nasa, Wikipedia, Universe Today and The Astronomical Journal.

WASP - 12B

This is one of the densest planets ever recorded in history. It is so dense that diamonds could be found in it to be as common as birds on earth. It is located in the fathomless depths of the Auriga constellation, about 4000 light years away. The planet is so hot, in fact, chances of finding our kind of biological life there is infinitesimally slim. The planet is only about 3.4 million kilometres away from its star - now this might sound like a lot but it really is not - compared to the earth it is more than 44 times closer to its star. Due to this proximity, the planet is continuously being torn apart. Its exterior temperature is calculated to be more than 2,200 degrees Celsius and due to the integral gravitational attraction on the planet, it looks like an egg.

With each passing second, the planet is under torment inflicted by its burning star, this causes it to lose huge parts of its mass (6 trillion kilograms) every second. The last time it was checked astronomers reported that its present size is about three times bigger than Jupiter but with its current predicament the planet might only be around for 10 million more years, after which it will be completely disintegrated. Before the discovery of the planet - sometime in April 2008, physicists had predicted that planets like this would occur and when it was discovered, it showed traits that left the researchers unsurprised.

SUPERMASSIVE ELECTRIC CURRENT

Every space fan has gotten that chill when they think about supermassive black holes, they cannot be investigated and it seems like all they want is to suck you in. Here's another mind-boggling phenomenon, there is a black hole somewhere 2 million light years away that has a tremendous magnetic field. This supermassive black hole releases the highest recorded electric current in the universe.

It was found in a galaxy named “3C 303” by scientists of the University of Toronto in 2011. The black hole is calculated to operate at 1 quintillion amps (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) - just enough to power every house on the earth for more than 12 billion years; to get this much current here on earth one must capture about one trillion bolts of lightning. The effects of the electric currents go over 150 thousand light-years across in diameter, our galaxy has a radius of about 100,000 light years, you can do them yourself.

THE PERSEUS CLUSTER

The image you see to the right is completely legit! Taken by the Chandra Observatory telescope, it is the X-ray image of a galaxy cluster and is often called the screaming skull - because of course, it looks like a screaming skull. It is located about 320 million light-years away and accommodates thousands of galaxies.

Looking at this image you will not see any visible galaxies, this is because the image is filled with a 50 million degrees cloud of intracluster gas. Scientists think that the reason why the cluster looks so grim is that it was developed by a supermassive black hole in its centre.

A homogeneously grim cluster is the so-called “Ghost hand of God” observing the cluster here on earth it looks like a luminous hand trying to reach and grasp a red cloud of light. This uncanny image is actually a result of the explosion by a star that died millions of years ago, now scientists say it is more a less a pulsar wind nebula.

EXTREME PUMPKIN STARS

Two years ago in 2016, NASA’s Kepler and Swift missions discovered a total of 18 pumpkin stars inside two of our marked constellations, Cygnus and Lyra - they are all about 6 thousand light years away from us. These badass stars are calculated to rotate with super astronomic speeds, this speed over time has contributed to their outward appearance as pumpkin figures. Compared to our star the sun (which takes about a month to complete a 360-degree rotation) these pumpkin stars take just a few days to complete rotating 360 degrees and they are way larger than our sun.

The rotations result in so many harmful and unpredictable phenomenon like solar flares and sunspots, these events inevitable worn out the stars causing them to release radio magnetic disturbances millions of kilometres away. This stars release very violent X-rays that are over a hundred times more intense than the X-rays emitted by our sun. One of the pumpkin stars called KSw71 is over 10 times bigger than our sun and it emits X-rays 4 thousand times greater.

TrES-2B

This is really the darkest planet ever recorded in the universe. The planet is about 750 light years away and it is found in the Draco constellation. The planet is a massive hot body covered with gas, it is not so different from our neighbouring planet Jupiter. The planet orbits a very popular star known as Kepler-1 and is seated about 5 million kilometres away from it. TrES-2B does not allow even up to 1 per cent of any light that hits its surface to escape, this means it is even darker or blacker than COAL.

Scientists at NASA are not yet quite sure as to why the planet is this dark, but some scientists have theorized that the gases which make up the exterior atmosphere of the planet (vaporized sodium, potassium or gaseous titanium oxide) is responsible for absorbing more than 99 per cent of the light that reaches it. Some other astronomers theorize that its darkness could also be caused by the absence of reflective clouds on its atmosphere, just like the ones that allow Jupiter appear very bright. The planet is incredibly hot! This may be due to the fact that it does not let out any light it gathers and it could be about 1100 degrees Celsius.

RXJ1347

The last mentioned planet TrES-2B, which is as hot as 1100 degrees Celsius, is a cold heaven compared to this one. This is a gas cloud located in the centre of the constellation Virgo, and relative to us it is 5 billion years away. The thing with RXJ1347 is that it is the hottest place ever recorded in the universe, estimated to be more than 20 times hotter than the centre of the sun, being 300 million degrees Celsius. This place is said to envelop a galaxy that is about 500 million light-years wide, therefore it is not just some kind of small astronomical blip; it is a stupendous harrow mass.

Scientists say that the cause of this extremely hot place is the collision of two large galaxies which were moving at ridiculously high amounts of speeds, most likely over 4 thousand kilometres per second. Assistant professor Naomi Ota of the Tokyo University of science after the investigation said that this collision of two galaxies if true would have been the most energetic celestial event since the big bang itself.

THE BOOMERANG NEBULA

Moving from one utmost condition to another, this is the coldest known place in the universe. The nebula is formed by a large cloud of gas which is being sent out by a dying star found in the constellation called Centaurus. Astronomers have collected data that reassures them that this place is usually as cold as half a degree above absolute zero.

If human beings were ever to experience a temperature as cold as this their body will freeze immediately. Yes, all the atoms in your body will cease their motion and all the biological processes that keep you alive will stop working immediately. In spite of the nebular being so dangerous to human life or biological life entirely, it is really one of our most important areas for astronomical research. The reason for this is that the star has not yet completely ionized its environment, in a more realistic term, it is still a dying star, not a dead one, thus this feature allows us to investigate complex questions about the life and death of stars. Scientists specify that this stage in a stars life usually lasts only about 1000 years, meaning we are very lucky to be alive at this time in history that allows us to study it because 1000 years is just a blink in time relative to the universe.

ZOMBIE STARS

The normal life cycle of stars shows that when a star reaches the end of its life it explodes into a supernova and that’s it! The exception is that sometimes this dead stars can find a way to revive itself and thus become a zombie star. Throughout the last days of the life of stars, they turn into what we call white dwarfs. What goes on inside the white dwarf is very boring, due to the fact that all their nuclear energy has been run down, they spend the last billion years of their life just cooling down and fading into a void.

However, on some rare occasions, this dying stars can steal energy from other new closeby stars. Sometimes they can take so much fuel from other stars and then cause a violent nuclear explosion which usually is powerful enough to completely awaken the star. Many astronomers consider these type of stars very useful because their brightness contributes vastly to finding distances in the universe.

WANDERING BLACK HOLES

Black holes are already terrifying as it is, judging from astronomical data, our galaxy is thought to have over a 100 million black holes. Out there in space exists a terrible kind of black hole, this hole moves around space consuming everything and anything that crosses its way. Scientist says that these type of black holes usually travel as fast as 5 million kilometres each hour.

For now, no astronomer is certain as to why any black hole would start moving so fast but some intellectuals suspect that they could be caused by the crash of multiple galaxies. A wandering black hole has been found in our very own milky way galaxy but is not an immediate threat because it is presently 10 thousand light years away.

THE GREAT ATTRACTOR

In the early 1960s scientists suspected this phenomenon because after astronomers calculated the data they got from investigating our galaxy, they found out that one side of the milky way is slightly warmer than the other side and it is moving through space, 600 kilometres faster than normal. These days we are sure that something very large for over billions of years has been drawing us closer and slowly to itself, and there is nothing we can do about it. The sad part is that we also know that the only force strong enough to pull a whole gravity that much at a time is gravity.

There is something out there that is very large and its gravity is pulling us to itself. The large body - whatever it is - is dragging us towards a place astronomers call the AVOIDANCE ZONE. The avoidance zone is a region in space that is just beyond the milky way and in the path of the constellation Centaurus. The zone is completely unobservable to us because of all the space junk, gases and dust that block out our view.

We have no way of telling what is causing this anomaly in gravity, could it be a supermassive black hole? Could it be a red supergiant? Or maybe it is something that we have never observed before. In any case, I think it will be fun to find out.

You've gotten to the end of our count down, so now ask yourself, which of these places do you think should be the most dangerous place, feel free to share you thought in the comment section. You can also invite your friends to check out these places, let us know what they think about these places in space.

REFERENCES

WIKIPEDIA - Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble

WIKIPEDIA - RX J1347.5-1145

POPULAR SCIENCE - Worst Places to Live in the Universe

WIKIPEDIA - Supermassive black hole

WIKIPEDIA - Great_Attractor

WIKIPEDIA - WASP-12b