The 8 Strangest Objects in the Universe

 

You’ve heard of the Horsehead Nebula and the Crab Pulsar before, but what about these eight other strangest objects in the universe? Eight objects would be quite difficult to explain to an alien friend. Don’t believe us? Take a look at them yourself. We bet you'll be left wondering how they got so weird!

 

1) Auroras

The northern and southern lights are caused by interactions between Earth’s magnetic field and charged particles from solar wind flowing along Earth’s magnetic field lines toward Earth’s north and south poles. Auroras can also form closer to home, like when electrons spiral down into a region around Earth known as its magnetosphere, which is produced by its magnetic field.

 

2) Magnetic fields

This one may sound strange, but magnetic fields, more accurately known as magnetospheres, are all around us. The Earth has a weak one that comes from its molten metal core. But other planets also have them—including Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Some moons and comets do, too, such as Jupiter’s moon Ganymede and Halley’s Comet (it looks like a tarball).

 

3) Neutron stars

Neutron stars are some of the strangest objects known to exist. They’re balls of neutrons, making them extremely dense and incredibly hot (around 4 trillion degrees Fahrenheit or 2 trillion degrees Celsius). The pressure from their gravity also makes them highly magnetic—so much so that scientists use neutron stars as tools to study magnetism. Unlike other kinds of stars, neutron stars do not have a solid surface. Instead, they are made up entirely of neutrons!

 

4) Black holes

There are many strange things in space, but arguably none are stranger than black holes. First predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, black holes are regions where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. We can’t directly observe them from Earth, but scientists use distant supernovae to confirm their existence and infer their influence on nearby stars.

 

5) Blue stragglers

Even though stars usually burn out after several billion years, blue stragglers can keep going for trillions of years. They’re odd in appearance because they are much hotter and brighter than you would expect from a star at that stage of its life.

 

6) M-class stars

The new class of M-class stars was created by two massive supernovae exploding, making them extremely heavy and short-lived. The stars are more than 10 times as heavy as our Sun but last less than 10 years. They burn out so quickly that they can only be found near supernova remnants. Scientists estimate that there are about 50,000 M-class stars in our galaxy alone. Although they are not visible to the naked eye, a few have been detected with powerful telescopes on Earth.

 

7) Pulsars

What are they? Why are they strange? And how do we detect them? For those not versed in astrophysics, Pulsars are extremely dense objects that form when a star explodes. They emit radiation beams and rotate rapidly—so rapidly, in fact, that they can spin as many as 1,000 times per second. That’s fast enough to make even a regular person dizzy! The rotation causes these pulsing stars to appear like cosmic lighthouses: Their beams sweep past Earth regularly. When these beams strike our planet’s atmosphere, they create flashes of light called pulses—hence their name.

 

8) Brown dwarfs

Often compared to failed stars, brown dwarfs are large objects (anywhere from 13 to 80 times more massive than Jupiter) that fall short of stellar status. These bizarre objects typically emit infrared light, invisible to human eyes, and can only be observed using telescopes. They shine from gravitational energy alone and don’t have enough mass to ignite nuclear fusion reactions like real stars. They also can’t fuse hydrogen-like smaller planets do—they lack the mass required for these reactions.