Damn Space, You Scary!

Black holes hurl themselves across the cosmos at nine-hundred million miles an hour

This is definitely a scary fact. Most people think of black holes as holes in space that suck everything in and let nothing out. The good news is that is not always true. Black holes are categorized by their size: supermassive, large, small, and micro. The micro holes are currently only a theory, but the medium sized black holes are formed when stars collapse and consume each other. Their reach is not very far, so they do not consume everything. Then, there are fast moving black holes which move at rapid rates of millions of miles per hour. These will consume everything in their path, but they have to be close enough to reach it; the worst happens when they collide with another object and change direction.

There are planets that do not play by the rules

Another of the scary facts about space that you should know is that rogue planets are planets that do not follow any given orbit. They may have been in an orbit at one time, but now they refuse to play by the rules. They were most likely knocked out of their orbit by another body, and now they are set on doing the same. They will roam through space until their course is altered or stopped by another cosmic body. That isn’t the scariest part. These rogue planets outnumber the stars and are presumed to be about the size of Jupiter. That is a lot of untamed planets roaming around in space just waiting to knock someone else out of their orbit.

Space debris can wipe out an entire civilization

There are rocks in space that are able to create large sized disasters. One rock at 0.6 miles wide can strike our planet and destroy everything in its path. Even, smaller rocks of 130 feet across can cause severe damage to the planet. It is thought that one larger rock (6 miles wide) is what wiped out the dinosaurs. One good thing the people of Earth now have going for them is that scientists are able to watch the skies for these dangerous rocks and deflect them before they endanger lives.

The deep, dark unknown does

This is just another of the scary facts about space. Space is considered to be a place of extreme blackness. There are not the comforting lights that are lit daily here on Earth; if you are afraid of the dark, then space is not the place for you. There are many dangerous phenomena lurking in the empty, vast darkness of space. Even with all the stars, there is still a vast open darkness.

Supermassive stars jettison plasma when they die and collapse into a black hole

When a supermassive star reaches the end of its life, it collapses into a black hole. This causes a great amount of energy to be released in the form of plasma jettisoning from the center of the star. This only occurs with the largest stars in the universe; since there are not any of these hypergiants in the Milky Way Galaxy, we are safe for now.

Powerful explosions bring stars back from the dead

Type Ia supernovas are often referred to as zombie stars because these white dwarfs have the ability to come back to life. White dwarfs are essentially dead until they create an enormous supernova that sucks material from their neighbors to bring them back to life. As they come back to life, their innards are scattered across the universe.

There are planets that do not play by the rules

Another of the scary facts about space that you should know is that rogue planets are planets that do not follow any given orbit. They may have been in an orbit at one time, but now they refuse to play by the rules. They were most likely knocked out of their orbit by another body, and now they are set on doing the same. They will roam through space until their course is altered or stopped by another cosmic body. That isn’t the scariest part. These rogue planets outnumber the stars and are presumed to be about the size of Jupiter. That is a lot of untamed planets roaming around in space just waiting to knock someone else out of their orbit.