What space object do you find the most interesting?

Personally, I find Brown Dwarfs to be absolutely fascinating. An object that isn't quite a planet and isn't quite a star, but something in between.

What would one even look like? Would it look like a gas giant that's glowing red, along with swirls of gas in its atmosphere like Jupiter? Or would it resemble a star and have a fiery surface like the sun? I prefer to imagine them as glowing gas giants but I don't know how realistic that is.

Gas giants in general are fascinating to me as well, I really hope we send a probe into one of the gas giants with a camera before I die. I'd absolutely love to see what it looks like inside a gas giants atmosphere before the probe gets crushed by the increasing pressure as it descends.

mjhelto ,

I love space phenomenon in the same way as some people like scary movies, games, and environments. I feel a strong sense of dread and fear at the thought of black holes, white dwarfs, and neutron stars. It's less about what you can see, and more about what you can't.

It's so bad that the most anxious and scared I've been in my life was on one of my first times using the FSD boost in the game Elite: Dangerous. In the game you can get boost to your ships travel by sucking up the streaming jets jutting out from white dwarfs and neutron stars. This boost can let you travel over 100ly, when average is 30ly or so. The process to do this, if done incorrectly however, can result in getting ripped out of cruising, stick, and unable to get away from these very disorienting beams before getting absolutely shredded. I have experienced nothing like it before or since.

To this day, neutron stars are both my favorite and most anxiety inducing universal phenomena! Slaughter House 5 is a really good book involving a neutron star, for those who haven't read it.

XeroxCool ,

I still forget how to tell white dwarfs from neutron stars. Both can charge you, but I think it's white dwarfs that have 1/4 the jet range for like 1/2 the boost. Basically a deadly waste of time. But I don't really go far. I have an icy Dolphin that can park in the normal star scoop zone and stay cool indefinitely, so the boost benefit isn't worth it to me. But I do enjoy that empty dread of the vastness of space and the inconceivable size of celestial bodies.

And of course the dread from the excellent sound design surrounding the Thargoids, the alien enemies you can seek out. But that's normal dread.

You ever land on mitterand hollow? Or rather, you ever let the moon known as mitterand hollow land on you? That's an experience. It's actually incredibly safe due to the spatial reframing, but good luck convincing your brain

niktemadur , (edited )

The thought of Quark Stars have fascinated me ever since I first read about them, about maybe fifteen years ago, a supernova remnant that is dense enough to overcome neutron degeneracy pressure, not dense enough to become a singularity.

The Cosmic Microwave Background was emitted when the Universe was around 370,000 years old, the oldest light in the Universe but the way space expands and accelerates, the distance at which the photons we detect now were emitted and when they reach us, is all distorted and crazily stretched. If you want to visualize how light moves as slow as a snail in the grand scheme of things, look no further.

Neutrinos, as far as we know the closest a particle with mass approaches zero, to the infinitesimal point that it's thought it doesn't derive its' mass from the Higgs Field. Then there's the as-yet elusive Cosmic Neutrino Background, emitted when the Universe was less than a second old.

Lightrider ,
@Lightrider@sh.itjust.works avatar

Primordial black holes and rogue planets.

Audacious ,

The great attractor. It's the biggest object we known of, but actually know almost nothing about. and it's in a spot that's hard to see through, our galaxy's center. Almost everything we see in the sky is heading towards that point, hence the name.

TheFonz ,

Rogue black holes are terrifying

sag ,
@sag@lemm.ee avatar

Black Hole and Neutron Star are my favorite celestial body.

whotookkarl ,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

My two biggest are probably Sol and voids. I wish I could directly observe the phase transition as you approach the star's core, understand it's corona patterns and behavior, observe deeper to predict CMEs, etc it's just so close and present in our daily lives and still very mysterious. For the voids I'm not sure maybe because it's defined by its boundary more than its contents, but they are pretty common and some are huge and it's just difficult to study something that is defined by its lack of something.

Adderbox76 ,

Honestly, our moon.

I firmly believe that our moon gives us the solar system in short order.

Fuel in the form of Helium-3 (if we can figure that out). Plenty of building material. Much lower gravity well that will allow larger payloads into it's orbit and larger ships to be constructed. As well as that lower gravity well meaning better fuel efficiency in launching just about any trajectory to anywhere else in the solar system.

Once we have the Moon, we're 90% of the way to a solar system spanning species. Mars is cool, but not useful in any real sense other than bragging rights.

itsnotits ,

into its* orbit

MonkderDritte , (edited )

What would one even look like?

Like a reddish glowing Jupiter.

psycho_driver ,

I've been pretty interested in Uranus for a while.

Jyrdano ,

I am going to mention the rogue planets, since no one else has mentioned them here yet. Those unlucky celestial bodies ejected by their home star, destined to fly through the universe alone, dark and cold, forever.

MonkderDritte ,

And intergalactic stars, ejected out of the galaxy

Remembers me of voids.

threelonmusketeers ,

Hypothetical, but Black Hole Stars (one of my favourite Kurzgesagt videos).

"Normally that would be the end – today’s stars go supernova, a black hole forms and things calm down. But in this case, the star survives its own death."

"An impossibly dangerous balance has been created – millions of solar masses pushing in, the angry radiation of a force fed black hole pushing out."

I'm hoping that some of the new long wavelength teleescopes like JWST might have a chance of seeing one of these beasts.

Xanis ,

I...what? Hold on, it was commonly thought that black holes effectively compress and hold infinite mass. Then math or simulations (or both) pointed out this isn't true, I think. Running on very dim memories here. IF this is true, then somehow the solar mass of the star is, uh...well fuck me. The ADHD train came in and I lost what I was thinking.

Any chance you have a compelling link on this topic?

send_me_your_mommy_milkers ,
@send_me_your_mommy_milkers@lemmy.world avatar

Quasars

NigelFrobisher ,

Are we still doing “Uranus”?

Adderbox76 ,

It's been changed to "Urectum" because scientists got tired of the infantile jokes.

slazer2au ,

This going to sound basic but I find the vacuum part of space to be the most interesting from an engineering POV.

We are all use to having an atmosphere we can convex heat out to but as there is no atmosphere where do you send your excess heat to?

Maestro ,
@Maestro@fedia.io avatar

You can only radiate it away, and it's slooooow

MonkderDritte ,

Ah yeah, there's a radiators modpack for KSP.

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