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Horizons Beyond – Blog for People Curious for Space
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Rogue Black Holes: Cosmic Wanderers
When galaxies collide, stars may be born, but rogue black holes are the exiles left behind Almost all massive galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center. However, in rare cases, a black hole can “move away” from the center.This can happen during galaxy mergers. When one galaxy collides with another, their black holes…
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The Largest Structure In the Universe: How Small We Really Are
How can one structure redefine the limits of possibility? The Universe always finds a way The largest structure in the Universe known today is the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. This is a flat structure made up of galaxies and spans an incredible 10 billion light-years! It makes up over 10% of the diameter of the…
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The Emptiest and Scariest Place in the Universe: The Boötes Void
If our Earth was located in the Boötes Void, then our night sky would not be illuminated by a single star 700 million light-years from Earth, there is a region of space with almost no galaxies. This area is nearly perfectly spherical and is called the Boötes Void, discovered in 1981. When it was first…
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Infinite Universe: Science or Illusion?
In a finite Universe, we seek its boundaries; in an infinite one, we seek its meaning The Universe is either infinite or expanding. But only something finite can expand. This leads to a reasonable question: is the Universe finite or infinite? First, it’s important to understand that the Universe doesn’t exist in space and time;…
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Incredible Exoplanets That Push the Limists of Science: The Most Unusual Planets In the Universe
Our Universe contains an infinite number of planets, each of which is unique and fascinating in its own way. However, some planets are so extraordinary that they are hard to imagine. Exoplanet Saffar (Ypsilon Andromedae b)Saffar is a gas giant located so close to its star that it completes one orbit in just 5 days.…
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Earth’s First Interstellar Greeting: The Golden Record
Even if the stars never answer back, The Golden Record ensures we’ve spoken The Voyager Golden Record is a special disc containing various sounds and images. The record itself is not made of gold but is coated with a thin layer of gold to protect it in space. Two copies of this record were sent…
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False Vacuum: How Vacuum Decay Could Destroy the Universe?
The fragility of our universe rests on an invisible edge, balancing between the false and the true Vacuum decay is one of the most fundamental and mysterious phenomena in quantum field theory. It suggests that the state a system is in might not be the most stable but only a “false” or metastable state. In…
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The 9th Lost Planet: Phaeton’s Forgotten Story
In the debris of the asteroid belt, we find the echoes of Phaeton’s story Phaethon is a hypothetical planet that might have once existed between Mars and Jupiter. It was destroyed long ago, leaving behind the asteroid belt. Why do people think there was a ninth planet? In the 18th century, scientists noticed that the…
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The Universe Within Our Reach: What is the Observable Universe?
The beauty of the observable Universe lies not just in what we see, but in the questions it leaves unanswered The observable universe is the region of the Universe that can be observed from Earth at the present time. Let’s explore this concept in simple terms. If the universe didn’t expand and the speed of…
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From Nothing to Everything: What Was Before the Big Bang?
Perhaps the Big Bang wasn’t a beginning but a memory – a faint echo of a Universe that has always been It is still impossible to say for sure what existed or didn’t exist before the Big Bang. We simply don’t know. No one has been able to give a clear and definite answer to…
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The Hottest Place in the Universe: So Hot the Numbers Don’t Make Sense
Where temperatures soar beyond imagination, the Universe writes its most dramatic stories of destruction and rebirth Many people think that space is just a cold, lifeless void. But in reality, temperatures in space can reach unbelievably high numbers. The lowest possible temperature in the Universe is -273°C. This is called absolute zero. But there is…
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A Journey To Exoplanets: Where Are Aliens Waiting For Us?
Each exoplanet orbits not just its star but the edge of human imagination An exoplanet is any planet that exists outside the Solar System. These include gas giants (planets without a solid surface) and Earth-like planets. Super-Earths are planets with a mass greater than Earth but smaller than Neptune (Neptune’s mass is 17.2 times that…
Horizons beyond 