The Craziest Things Found In Space

1. Trifid Nebula - it REALLY is real!

Image source/ nebulaexpThis Trifid Nebula literally looks like something fantastical and made up. When we look at this image it is easy to imagine that this is a picture out of a Disney movie, or some made up land or universe. Nope, this is totally real and literally out of this world.

2. A supermassive blackhole

Image source/ HuffPostWe've all heard of black holes in space. But there is a super massive black hole (which is billions of times larger than our sun) - it sounds scary enough on its own, and then there's the fact that it is moving at a rapid pace of millions of miles per hour which leaves us with a totally incomprehensible picture.

3. A HUGE unknown force

Image source/ space.comThis is absolutely as terrifying as it sounds. Beyond the realms of the universe of that which is visible to us, is a massive and unknown force which we cannot see. But it is powerful as it is literally swallowing parts of our universe into it. It is totally unknown and mysterious to us for the moment.

4. Real shooting star

Image source/ YouTubeWhat we call shooting stars that we see in the sky are not in fact actual shooting stars at all. They are technically just moving meteorites in space. Stars are billions of times larger than these meteorites. And when they do shoot across the sky it is not a common occurrence like we see, but it has definitely happened before according to scientists.

5. A giant river of alcohol

Image source/ mentalflossYes, there really is a giant flow of alcoholic liquid in space - so essentially it is like a giant river of vodka. It can be found on the Sagittarius B2. It is floating around near the centre of our galaxy, and it is not just a little bit of alcohol there...there are 10 billion x billions of it.

6. A huge lens

Image source/ berkleynationalThere is what can only be described as a giant lens in space. Because of the unique and strange conditions of space, something called the bending of light occurs. And then it produces an affect where there is essentially a huge lens in our galaxy which looks pretty much like a big glasses lens.

7. Antimatter

Image source/ fineartamericaIn space there is what scientists have named anti-matter. This means that all matter has another version of itself - the opposite of itself. On earth there are similar instances to this occurrence however antimatter is unique to space. It highly unusual environment means lots of strange things happen here.

8. Mini black holes

Image source/ techexplosivesSo, unlike the huge mega-black holes these are a LOT smaller. But there's a lot of other differences too. These are thought to be left over from the big bang. Scientists think individual black holes are around the size of an atom's nucleus which is miniscule. And there are thousands of these in space.

9. The cosmic microwave background

Image source/ PBSWhat is called the 'cosmic microwave background' is now seen as the most substantial piece of evidence to support the theory of the big bang ever. The birth of the Universe. It causes a kind of sound that can be heard throughout the whole of space which is how it first came to be discovered in the first place.

10. Dark matter

Image source/ TheDarkGalaxyYou may have heard of the term 'dark matter' when in reference to space. But what it is not exactly known, and everybody has a different and differing opinion. It cannot yet be detected by the technology that we have right now and so some people do not even believe that it actually exists at all, whereas others think that it makes up most of what space is formed of.

11. Exoplanets

Image source/ NASAWe are all really familiar with the standard solar system planets that occur in the songs - such as the usual. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus. But there are exoplanets which are very similar and there are a LOT of them...more than 500 have currently been located in the Universe. And astronomers think these are just a few of many, many more, yet to be discovered.

12. Quasars

Image source/ bearsportsQuasars are something that are thought to be made from deep, deep giant black holes in space. And they shine so powerfully that we can actually see them on the verge of the universe that we are able to see with our technologies right now. The quasars are so powerful that they release more energy than thousands of different galaxies put together.

13. Gravity waves

Image source/ thephysicsmillThere are what are referred to as gravity waves found in space. These are different waves that have a different gravitational frequency - but they are so weak that they are very difficult to detect. These travel at the speed of light. We still use Albert Einstein's theory to understand these concepts now.

14. Galaxies eating one another

Image source/ thephysicsmillThis sounds like a very fascinating and terrifying occurrence, which it is. Over billions of years galaxies can collide with one another and then what happens is one essentially absorbs the other one - in a way it is kind of like one swallow up the other one like they are eating one another.

15. Neutrinos

Image source/ cosmosmagazineNeutrinos are a kind of particle that are found all around us in the air. They come from space and things such as mega stars. They can actually go through the hardest materials with ease and remain totally the same afterward. This is just another example of the weird and wonderful things found in space.

16. Vacuums

Image source/ space.comIt is hard to think that there are spaces of absolutely nothing / void of air, light, particles. But, in space these occur, and things actually disappear into vacuums and somehow disappear into nothing. Of course, knowledge about vacuums in space is still limited because nobody can explore them.

17. HUGE electrical currents

Image source/ PhysThink of a lightning strike - and then times it by billions and billions. Because that is the force of this electrical current which was found. It is the strongest electrical current that has ever been found thus far. It's a very impressive and pretty incomprehensible thing.

18. Ocean life

Image source/ earthexploreOcean life can still not yet be confirmed; however, astronomers and scientists have found evidence that there may indeed be ocean life on the planet called Titan. Of course, this planet is much colder than ours and so the sea life that would be found here would be nothing like anything that we currently know on Earth.

19. A moon museum

Image source/ PinterestThis sounds strange, and it is not something that naturally occurs in space like the rest of the things on the list. During Apollo 12, some works of art were taken to the moon to create the first ever moon museum of art. The astronauts wanted to leave a mark on the moon - in the form of a space museum.

20. The OORT cloud

Image source/ PinterestThe OORT cloud theoretically is a massive patch of ice floating in space that has clustered together in a kind of formation. The key word here is theoretical because the OORT cloud has never actually been seen. But astronomers think that it has to exist because they believe that the creation of comets are linked with the cloud in question.

21. Radio signals

Image source/ downtoearthRadio signals have been appearing all over space for many years now. They appear as extremely quick flashes and these flashes are actually what we are seeing billions and billions of light years away that have carried through time and space to reach up. These signals have been recorded by scientists to keep track of the formations.

22. The strongest substance ever

Image source/ space.comAnother amazing thing (called nuclear pasta) that can be found in space is the strongest material...in the entire universe. More than steel (in fact billions of times stronger than steel), and stronger even than diamonds. And what is it made from? It is made from dead stars...

23. An abnormal ring around the star

Image source/ CNNTabby's star, as it was nicknames after an astronomer named Tabetha discovered it, was found to dip in brightness for unequal lengths of time. It was found by scientists to be caused by an abnormal ring of dust that surrounds the star. This ring darkens the star at intervals making it appear less bright.

24. Saturn's Hyperion

Image source/ skyimagelabSaturn's Hyperion is not like anything else in the entirety of the solar system. There is what is called a static beam coming from Saturn's Hyperion - which was discovered by NASA and is essentially a beam of light made up of particles. It is also full of meteor craters within its strange rocky surface.

25. A living fossil

Image source/ space.comDGSAT is what is named an ultra-diffuse galaxy - it is nearly as big as the milky way but because the positioning of the stars within it are so spread out - the galaxy appears to be invisible. It was traced back to one billion years BEFORE the big bang - which makes it a living fossil.

26. Infrared stream

Image source/ space.comAll of these things sound like they come from a movie because it is so far from what we know and understand on earth...including an infrared stream which sounds totally crazy. But, in space there really is just that - a long flowing beam of infrared light.

27. Rogue planets

Image source/ historyvault.comThere are so many planets in the atmosphere - many which we have absolutely no idea about and don't even know exist yet. Another thing that is found in space are rogue planets. These are planets which have become disengaged from the gravitational force and pull of their galaxy and have then been left on their own.

28. Oumuamua

Image source/ ThenationalinterestOumuamua is...well nobody can quite agree. Is it a solar sail, a large chunk of ice, a planet that hasn't fully formed? It is a mysterious object that astronomers found in space, and it sailed pretty close to the sun and randomly sped up which made scientists question how and why?

29. The Dark Flow

Image source/ YouTubeThe Dark Flow sounds ominous...and so it is. There are a group of very distant galaxies travelling in a kind of cluster together - at one million mph. Again, this formation has baffled scientists who decided to give the name the dark flow, which sounds fittingly cool.

30. Golf balls

Image source/ YouTubeNow this, considering the amazing and terrifying findings on earth, sounds oddly mundane. But how did gold balls actually find themselves floating around space? Well, it seems astronauts are fond of a game or two of golf - even when in space and the balls remain as testimony.

31. Fermi Bubbles

Image Source / AstronomyFermi bubbles are these two huge expanding bubbles at our galaxy's centre - but they're not just bubbles either. They're actually made up of very powerful gamma rays. To make it more mysterious and crazy, nobody knows how these bubbles came to be.

32. Accelerating Universe

Image Source / AstronomyAnd if the idea of things in space expanding terrifies you, wait until you hear about this one... basically, this picture (caught by the Hubble Space Telescope) shows around 10,000 galaxies that are moving away from us at a zooming speed, faster and faster, as though expanding...

33. Hexagon On Saturn

Image Source / NASA Solar System ExplorationThere's a mysterious hexagon atop the planet Saturn. Back in 2006, it was shockingly discovered sitting at the planet's north pole. And in the center of this hexagon? Another hexagon! And it certainly amazed the astronomers when they found out.

34. Red Rectangle Nebula

Image Source / AstronomyThis one is a particular fascinating mystery to astronomers. The colour of this 'Red Rectangle', which is known as Extended Red Emission, had not actually been seen in our universe until 1975. Nobody really understands this nebula's rectangle shape, either.

35. Galaxy Segue 1

Image Source / AstronomyThis image shows what was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope of Abell 1689 - a galaxy cluster whose light arcs are caused by dark matter and gravity (or so it's believed). Segue 1, a galaxy, has a mass equivalent to around 600,000 suns!

36. Carbon Spiral AFGL 3068

Image Source / AstronomyAFGL 3068 may seem like a very complicated name, but it's a one-of-a-kind star. This particular star appears to have perfectly space spirals of carbon dust. The light source for this situation is actually the Milky Way Galaxy itself - mind blowing!

37. Hoag's Object

Image Source / AstronomyWhat's Hoag's Object, we hear you ask? Lot's of strange names for things in space! But this one is a galaxy which is positioned 600 million light-years away. It has a core and outer region, but it doesn't appear to have anything else, making it very unique, apparently!

38. Milky Way Antimatter Fountain

Image Source / AstronomyThe Milky Way is visible on this photo, and to the center of it - which you can see in the brighter area at the top left - there is actually an antimatter fountain (which is invisible) which gives out positrons (antimatter of electrons) light-years above the galactic plane!

39. Crab Nebula

Image Source / AstronomyThe Crab Pulsar refers to the remains of a star which exploded back around 5450 B.C. (approximately). The nebula actually has a span of around 16 miles and still spins at 33 times per second! The Pulsar is located in the center of the Crab Nebula.

40. Pulsar Planets

Image Source / AstronomyThis radio telescope is what is responsible for discovering planets in space. It resides at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and is the biggest single-aperture (optical system) telescope in the world. Amongst planets found include two planets that were found to be orbiting a millisecond pulsar (rotating neutron star).

41. The IBEX Ribbon

Image Source / AstronomyThe IBEX is a spacecraft that has pretty darn good sensors for picking things up in space! Here you can see the spacecraft in the center which actually detected a band of mysterious neutral atoms moving along the outskirts of the solar system - moving in the direction of Earth!

42. Iapetus

Image Source / AstronomySaturn has more than one moon, and the third-largest of its moons is Iapetus. The crazy thing about Iapetus, though, is its equator, which is raised (shown here on the bottom left of the satellite). The reason for the raised area is a mystery.

43. Miranda: The Moon Of Uranus

Image Source / AstronomyAnd Saturn isn't the only planet with its own moons, either. Uranus has some of its own, too, and Miranda is one of them. The weird thing about Miranda is that her terrain is slightly strange... as you can see in this photo, taken by Voyager 2.

44. The Einstein Cross

Image Source / AstronomyEinstein already unveiled his theory of relativity understanding that space can actually warp itself. The Einstein Cross is a cosmic galaxy which sits between Earth and a quasar (supermassive black hole), at around 8 billion light-years away. It bends the light from the quasar, showing four other bright objects (shown in this image) as a result.

45. Triton: Neptune's Moon

Image Source / AstronomyThis image is a computer-generated photo to show Neptune as it would look if you were approaching Triton on a spaceship. Triton is Neptune's largest moon (as you can see, it's pretty big!). Triton is considered just plain weird because it apparently moves weird, looks weird and has mysteries no one can wrap their head around.

46. High-Energy Cosmic Rays

Image Source / AstronomyCosmic rays definitely sound crazy, and space is full of them, apparently. Cosmic rays are nothing we need to worry about, thanks to the atmosphere on Planet Earth and also its magnetic field playing a part in that protection. But cosmic rays - rays of light in space - do exist.

47. The Cat's Eye Nebula

Image Source / AstronomyThe Cat's Eye is the name given to one Nebula in space, which is concentric circles of space-ness - not only that, but apparently it only shows itself once every century. The existence of it, and its behaviour, is apparently a head-scratcher for scientific theorists.

48. The Dog Star

Image Source / AstronomyYou can see in this illustration the blue-white dwarf which is Sirius B (on the right side, the smaller circle). What this little dwarf does is rotate around the left hand star - Sirius, The Dog Star - every 50 years. And fans of Harry Potter will love that!

49. Europa

Image Source / AstronomyEuropa is the definition of ever-changing when it comes to space! Europa is the smallest of Jupiter's moons, and it has floating ice sheets and water which encompasses salty oceans underneath. I mean that exists in space away from Earth - how crazy is that!

50. The Blackeye Galaxy

Image Source / AstronomyJust to add more craziness to the mix, how about a galaxy which spins in opposite directions all at once? Nope, I don't get it either. The Blackeye Galaxy makes sure that absolutely nothing is straightforward about it. Little is known about it, and astronomers can't even figure out how far away it is from us!