#Science Facts

[the-captain-and-his-suga]

Black Hole : Types and Origin

Black holes have always been one of the most talked about celestial object in space. Black holes are typically formed from the remnants of massive stars. When a star that is at least three times the mass of our Sun exhausts its nuclear fuel, it undergoes a gravitational collapse. The core of the star collapses to a singularity (a point of infinite density), and its outer layers may be blown away in a supernova explosion. The gravitational field in the region left behind becomes so strong that it forms a black hole.

Black holes can be of varied sizes and mass. They are categorized into mainly 3 types:

Stellar Black Holes: These black holes are the most common type and are formed from the collapse of massive stars. They typically have a mass between 3 to 10 times that of the Sun. Cygnus X-1, the first confirmed black hole, is an example of a stellar black hole.

Super Massive Black Holes: These are found at the centers of most galaxies, including the Milky Way. They are millions to billions of times more massive than the Sun. The supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is called Sagittarius A* The origin of Sagittarius A* is still unknown but scientists theorize that it might've formed through the merging of smaller universes.

Intermediate Black Holes: These black holes are rare and have masses between stellar and supermassive black holes. There is no known origin of these black holes but it is suspected that it can be formed through stellar black holes merging.

[protectoursharks]

I learned a cool thing about sharks at the aquarium and was wondering if I could tell you? I mean, you probably already know it. But apparently the reason a lot of shark incidents aren't fatal are because the shark takes a bite, realizes what they're biting isn't food, and so they basically go "my bad, you aren't food" and leave. It was a little "test bite" and the test revealed that what they were biting wasn't food so they left. Or they were just biting because they felt threatened and they weren't actually looking to kill the human, just get the fellow apex predator to please leave them alone. This is why we can touch little sharks in some aquariums, because they're well-fed so not gonna test bite us and they also have a safe escape and so aren't going to bite the people in an effort to be left alone, because they don't like picking fights and if they have an easy out, they'll take it.

I don't know, I just thought this was so cool.

Yes!

The "Mistaken Identity Hypothesis" proposes that sharks have a hard time differentiating humans from their normal prey from below. They take one bite, realize we're not a seal or turtle, and swim away. However,

Sharks have better eyesight than most people think!

This doesn't explain why there have been attacks in very clear water

You've probably seen videos of sharks attacking their prey; there's a lot of force behind those attacks, sometimes even breaching the water. In most cases, when a shark attacks a human it's with much less force and energy

There have been cases of sharks routinely biting- but not eating- penguins off the coast of South Africa

Sharks aren't mindless killers, they're animals who get curious! If they see something they don't recognize or encounter often, they might just want to take a bite to see what it is.

The simpler reason most sharks don't bite humans twice is because we taste bad.

[factsbureau]

Did you know that when you look at a star, you just see how it was in the past?

When you look at a star in the night sky, what you see is not how the star currently appears, but rather how it looked in the past. This is because light takes time to travel through space.

The distance between the star and Earth, known as the "light-year distance" is the distance that light travels in one year.

For example, if a star is 10 light-years away from Earth, then what you see on the sky is how it looked 10 years ago.

[nando161mando]

[theofficialastronomy101]

Back in the 1950s, the Andromeda galaxy was captured at Mount Wilson Observatory in California.

[geek-22]

I cannot for the life of me find the OG post, if anyone knows what these accounts are called now I will cry (positive)

[queercodedangel]

The idea that there are "too many people" and the belief that we need to "work harder and be more productive" in order to keep society functioning are probably two of the most harmful neoliberal myths.

[amnhnyc]

Animal lovers, have you ever heard of the zebra duiker (Cephalophus zebra)? This small ungulate can be found in parts of West Africa, including Liberia. Adults typically weigh up to 44 lbs (20 kg)—no larger than a medium-sized dog! This critter’s diet includes hard-shelled fruits, which it cracks open using a thick bone in its skull. Its signature stripes help it hide from predators, and it is rarely seen in the wild.

Photo: Kispál Attila, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 

[factsbyscience]

NASA rovers and landers such as Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance have captured images of Martian sunsets. These photos are possible thanks to cameras equipped on these robotic explorers, which are capable of surviving and operating on the Martian surface.

In 2005, NASA’s Spirit rover took the first color images of a Martian sunset.

These sunsets appear blue near the Sun and reddish farther away — the opposite of Earth — due to the way Martian dust scatters sunlight in the thin atmosphere.

Humans have wondered about the skies of other planets for millennia, but only in the 21st century have we gained the technology to literally see what a sunset looks like on another world.

This makes our generation the first to witness something that was once purely science fiction.

[papillondusublime]

Fun fact: obelisks, a new life form discovered in 2024, are viroid-like elements made of entirely novel RNA sequences. They are a distinct phylogenetic group, however scientists have yet to find a shared ancestry with another life form. Obelisks appeared in about 10% of the human microbiome examined by the Stanford University team, but their genetic sequences are very small, which might be the reason why we didn't notice them before.

[argonavis-karina]

“i never see you at parties” well i never see you tasting chemicals in the lab like fine wine???

[the-captain-and-his-suga]

A Black Hole is a region in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. This intense gravitational pull is caused by a large amount of mass being compressed into a very small space. Black holes can form when massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycles.

[curium-killedthecat]

auchenorryncha is a suborder of the hemiptera (true bugs), it’s one of my favourites because i love small bugs and it includes cool small bugs like leafhoppers, treehoppers, planthoppers, froghoppers, spittlebugs and cicadas.

so, lots of hoppers.

anyways, look at these really cool planthopper nymphs which secrete wax that make tails that look like fibre optics:

not all species have tails that look exactly like this, some look like wiry net, or barbed wire, but nevertheless, how cool is this?

if i’m not mistaken, these are common in thailand and the tails’ purpose is still largely unknown but thought to be mostly defensive. in some cases it can hypnotise predators, to make them stop and gawk at the strange creatures. in others, it can warn them not to eat them, since the wax would taste imaginably bad.

it also helps them to glide when they fall, jump, or hop- as planthoppers should. the tail fans out and increases air resistance, and oddly, also rotation while midair!

some tails can even be hydrophobic to prevent rain delay. a lot of the time, they can be used as camouflage.

whatever the reason, these planthoppers are insanely cool.

[factsbureau]

Did you know that Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies will collide ?

The Milky Way and Andromeda are the two largest galaxies in the Local Group and they are currently on a collision course which is driven by their mutual gravitational attraction.

Galaxies are not stationary objects, but are instead in constant motion, orbiting around each other and moving through the vast expanse of space.

The gravitational forces between them pull them closer together over time. As the two galaxies approach, their gravitational fields will become stronger, accelerating the rate of their collision.

This collision will not be a catastrophic event, but rather a gradual process that will take hundreds of millions of years to complete.

The two galaxies will pass through each other, with stars and other objects from each galaxy interacting and merging with each other.

The resulting galaxy will be a giant elliptical galaxy, with a mass of hundreds of billions of stars.

[theofficialastronomy101]