Space is scary, isn’t it?
Honestly, if I were to magically transport you to some completely random place in the universe, there’s a 99.99999999% chance that you would die in an instant. You can also add 9 to these odds.
If you’re lucky, the broadest definition of “lucky,” you’ll materialize and evaporate on the surface (or inside) of a star, or get shredded by tides or planets near a black hole. . Toxic atmosphere.
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That’s just the reality. The universe is mostly empty, as close to a vacuum as you want to claim, and anything that isn’t empty is definitively, and horrifyingly, deadly. It’s rough outside.
Something like that also appears in the novel. In our literature, movies, and imagination, the universe is filled with aliens trying to steal our water, technology, and life. Even the most mundane (yet fictional) UFO stories have an eerie, spooky feel to them.
Perhaps our spatial perception is influenced by all this. Sure, there is beauty and awe to fill anyone’s soul, but is there also a cold draft that blows through, soaking ice in the spirit and sending shivers down the spine?
Combine this with pareidolia, our brain’s tendency to create patterns out of noise. Oh, sure, sometimes you can see a happy face in a cloud or a familiar religious symbol in a piece of toast. However, at night, there is also a shadow that becomes an eerie presence in the corner of the bedroom. The trees swaying in the storm feel like they’re about to reach you. And those words you heard were heard in the howling wind?
The same sensory subjectivity applies to objects in space. They take on all kinds of shapes and our brains interpret them however we want.
And of course, it’s the season. It may seem a little strange to celebrate the spooky and downright terrifying cosmic caricatures we peer through our telescopes just because the Earth is in its annual orbit around the sun, but we’re sure you’ll appreciate the charm of Halloween. There is no denying it.
So let’s take a look at some spooky space ghosts that are perfect for the holiday season. After all, they are literally creepy.
witch’s head nebula
One of my favorite objects in the entire sky, especially in October, is NGC 1909, also known as the Witch’s Head Nebula. Why is it called that? Put on your familiar pointy hat and take a peek at this.
The resemblance to a typical witch’s head is noteworthy. We see a pointed jaw, a crooked nose, an open mouth as if uttering a curse, and eyes staring wide at horrors we cannot recognize.
If you throw a bucket of cold water at it, what you’re actually seeing is a cloud of interstellar dust made up of tiny rock particles and carbon-based molecules. Interstellar dust is usually impermeable to visible light, but the witch’s head is a reflection of the fantastically glowing star Rigel (which, from an observer’s point of view, may be better known as Orion’s right “knee”). It is nearby and reflects its intense starlight. Please come back to us. This star also warms the dust. This image taken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) shows the dust’s thermal infrared glow. Buried deep within this cloud is a dense spot that produces brand new baby star offspring, ironic given fairy tale witches’ penchant for devouring children, and in fact it is vast and chaotic. It may be part of the Orion molecular cloud complex.
Burning Skull Nebula
I remember the first time I saw a Sharpless 2-68. My immediate reaction was, “Oh, that’s the Fiery Skull Nebula over there.” What else do you call it? this?
TA Chancellor (University of Alaska Anchorage)/H. Schweiker (WIYN and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA) (CC BY 4.0)
I mean, it’s a skull flame.
That’s right, it’s actually a planetary nebula, the gas released when a sun-like star runs out of fuel in its core and its outer layers begin to peel off. A star’s “wind” of hydrogen and other elements that is blown into space is energized by the exposed, extremely hot core of the star. Oxygen near the core glows blue, and the cavities within it, or “eyes” and “mouths,” may have been shaped by interactions between the stellar wind and the star’s surrounding environment. The overall “skull” shape appears at some distance from the star as the oxygen glow fades in the decay of the star’s light.
But further out, that hydrogen glows intensely red. The dying star is also moving pretty fast, so a thin porridge of interstellar gas blows away the emitted hydrogen, creating a long tail that looks like a skull on fire.
Has anyone told Marvel?
alien demon nebula
This may not be the official name, but no one will argue with this name.
I’m an astronomer and scientist who has spent decades debunking anti-scientific nonsense, and I wanted to tell you that this deep space object is clearly the head of an alien demon. I’m here.
Technically speaking, it’s three objects. The 18 Hafner star clusters make up the “nose”. The “eye” on the right is the Hafner 19 star cluster. This cluster contains a large number of massive, glowing stars that illuminate the surrounding gas and form a nearly spherical region of glowing hydrogen called a Strömgren sphere. The “mouth” is the young star cluster NGC 2467, which is also a site of active star birth. The bright star that marks the “eye” on the left is HD 64455. Confusingly, this object is actually several nebulae, likely at different distances from Earth and overlapping along our line of sight, making it difficult to study them individually.
Or maybe it’s just a giant alien demon head? want Should we think?
skull asteroid
In 2015, just on Halloween, an asteroid passed by just 485,000 kilometers from Earth. It’s a strange coincidence (Or is it?) Radar scan of the object reveals it to have an eerie shape like human skull.
Called 2015 TB145, it has a diameter of about 600 meters, and in addition to its fictional frightening features, it is also officially a potentially dangerous asteroid, meaning it could collide with Earth, albeit remotely, and have disastrous effects on a global scale. This means that it is a sexual asteroid. harm. Fortunately, we’ll be safe from this skull-shaped space rock for at least 150 years (if it’s discovered in interceptor orbit, there’s plenty of time to do something about it).
2015 TB145 has an unusual orbit that is highly elliptical and highly tilted from the planet’s plane, which is generally expected to be more of a comet than an asteroid. It’s also a bit more reflective than a typical asteroid, again making it more suitable for a comet. But there are no signs of the usual kind of cometary activity, and the Sun has probably used up all the gas after repeated passes.
This results in died The comet is very appropriate given the theme here.
sun orantern
Not everything in the universe has to be spooky to fit right in with Halloween. On October 8, 2014, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a photo of the Sun that will carve a path into your heart. It looks especially pumpkin-like here.
This shot combines two images taken in extreme ultraviolet light (light at much shorter wavelengths than what our eyes can see), which highlights magnetic activity. A strong magnetic field lifts the hydrogen from the surface, causing it to travel in giant loops and glow brightly. The sun’s activity occurs on an 11-year cycle, and in 2014 it peaked, with sunspots common and coronal loops arcing above them. Most of the loops would be tens of thousands of kilometers high and more than a million kilometers wide, but they would turn the Sun into a giant solar jack-o-lantern, releasing 1 megatons of nuclear energy at 100 billion bombs per second. And this reminds us that we are at the peak of the solar cycle right now, So, once again, as the eve of All Hallows’ Eve approaches, ancient and terrifying gourds roam among us.
Happy Halloween!
