This Fluffy Galaxy Captured by the Hubble Telescope’s Camera Is Truly Amazing

Space is full of different shapes, sizes, and colors. There’s the vibrant blue of Earth’s oceans, the cheese-like exterior of the moon, the octopus-esque tentacles of galaxies — the list goes on and on.

Scientists also use the word “flocculent” to describe some galaxies, including one recently captured by the camera on the NASA?ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Translated into English, flocculent basically means fluffy.

Yes, that’s right, the world’s pre-eminent researchers and scientists just described a galaxy as fluffy! And just look at how adorable this fluffy little guy really is:

Photo Credit: ESA/Hubble & Nasa, J. Lee and the Phangs-Hst Team

This striking photograph shows a galaxy that goes by the name NGC 2275. It’s far, far away from us here on Earth, located 67 million light-years away. It’s situated within the Cancer constellation.

NASA noted its “delicate, feathery nature,” which you can see super clearly from this crisp image. Those spiral arms are made up of millions of young stars, contrasted with lanes of dark space dust. The stars are young and hot, which makes them appear blue.

According to NASA….

“Complexes of these hot, blue stars are thought to trigger star formation in nearby gas clouds.

The overall feather-like spiral patterns of the arms are then formed by shearing of the gas clouds as the galaxy rotates.”

The space agency says that the fluffiness also indicates relatively quiet star formation in the galaxy.

NASA says,

“There is virtually no star formation in the central part of the galaxy, which is dominated by an unusually large and relatively empty galactic bulge, where all the gas was converted into stars long ago.”

How cool is that? The Hubble telescope has really opened up our ability to analyze and understand space, including these interesting little details.

What’s your favorite element of space? Do you have a particular planet or feature that you’re particularly partial to for some reason?

We’d love to hear from you!

Let us know in the comments!

The post This Fluffy Galaxy Captured by the Hubble Telescope’s Camera Is Truly Amazing appeared first on UberFacts.

Great Facts That Will Arouse Your Curiosity

It’s important to be curious about our planet and to always want to learn more about this special place that we inhabit.

That’s why I like to call myself a “lifelong learner.”

And I think it’s something that we should all strive for! Don’t you?

Let’s keep the train a-rollin’ with another great set of facts that will make you think and will definitely arouse your curiosity.

Enjoy!

1. Let’s bring it over here!

I love a good nap!

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2. A sign of wealth.

We need to make this happen again.

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3. Does this describe you?

Let’s be friends, okay?

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4. They don’t work.

And they never will.

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5. Can’t do both.

She was a wild child.

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6. Public Enemy Number One.

He was a true gangster.

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7. Across the universe.

That’s pretty wild.

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8. This is amazing.

“The ones who help humans.”

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9. I sure hope so…

This is good news!

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10. That makes me sad.

I hope they don’t have too many problems…

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Those facts are great, don’t you think?

Now we’d like to hear from you.

In the comments, please share an interesting fact or a fascinating article or story that you’ve seen lately.

Thanks in advance!

The post Great Facts That Will Arouse Your Curiosity appeared first on UberFacts.

Great Facts That We Think Will Impress You

It takes a lot to impress people with all the information we’re bombarded with on a daily basis.

But our fact sets have gained a reputation as solid, interesting, and dependable because we do our best to cultivate the most interesting things out there.

We love to give you the good stuff!

And here’s another set of facts that we’re confident will impress you mightily.

Enjoy these 10 facts and feel free to share them with your family and friends!

1. That’s why they’re called that?

Did you know that?

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2. Join the club, Mr. Jefferson.

So many people have this fear.

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3. Meteor town.

This is really cool.

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4. Never been one case.

Light it up and puff, puff, pass!

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5. This makes sense.

Does this fact describe YOU?

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6. Flatter than a pancake.

It’s true! Here’s the proof!

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7. A total accident.

Thankful for this mistake.

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8. They were this close.

Imagine what the world would be like.

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9. Ancient warnings.

Going back centuries.

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10. Another reason to like them!

They really are great dogs!

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Color me impressed!

Okay, now we want to hear from all the readers out there.

In the comments, please share something that you’ve seen or learned lately that has impressed you.

It could be a fact, an article, a story, etc.

Thanks in advance!

The post Great Facts That We Think Will Impress You appeared first on UberFacts.

Pale Blue Dot

Carl Sagan convinced NASA to turn the Voyager Spacecraft towards earth and take the iconic “Pale Blue Dot” photo nearly 4 billions miles away from earth. “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever […]

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People Offer Theories About How They Believe Humans Will Become Extinct

It’s very unpleasant to think about death, extinction, or the world coming to an end, but I will say that it definitely makes for some good conversation.

Will it be a nuclear war? A plague? An asteroid that hits Earth and wipes us all out?

It could be any number of things…

Here’s what people on AskReddit had to say…

1. A scary thought.

“I have a feeling we’re eventually headed towards nuclear fallout or chemical destruction.

I believe it is inevitably China Vs the United States (and allies like Australia).

I also believe Putin is sitting back with the popcorn at the moment.”

2. Sickness spreads…

“I think it will be a pandemic, much like we are having now, only more lethal.

I’ve heard several people say that COVID isn’t the big one, but it’s going to expose how unprepared the world is for the big one.”

3. Poetic justice.

“Because the majority of the population choose to believe oil CEOs with everything to lose instead of scientists with no reason to lie.

Pretty fitting way to go honestly, I hope the climate change deniers keep on denying it up til the very end, that’d be poetic justice for humanity.”

4. Inching closer to it.

“Depletion of resources, destruction of the environment, and the wars that will result from those things.

I don’t think humanity will ever get to a sci-fi future where we’re exploring the stars and colonizing other planets. The resources on this planet are very finite and they will not last thousands of years at the rate we’re using them. Even 10,000 years is less than a blink of an eye on a cosmic scale.

I think the next 100, maybe 200 years are going to be the peak for our civilization. As the critical resources necessary for technological advancements dry up and environmental destruction creates refugees/migration/starvation on a global scale, we’ll basically destroy ourselves in the resulting wars.

We might not actually go extinct until many millennia after that, but civilization as we know it will be over.”

5. All kinds of calamities.

“Absolutely we will go extinct.

Rising temperatures will eventually push many places around the earth to be uninhabitable. Combine that with the decreased ability to grow grains at scale needed to sustain the over-bloated human population, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Eventually large wars will break out over the very scarce resources that the earth is able to provide.

It’s called loss of habitat due to resource exhaustion. Many species experience it and it leads to their extinction, and humans are just another species.”

6. Poisoning ourselves.

“Pollution.

Especially the hormone disruptive ones. They won’t kill us instantly, but each generation will be more affected by them than the last, making it harder and harder to reproduce.

Might not happen this century or even the next few centuries, as there’s still plenty of people to reproduce, even at a lower rate. But it’s already affecting people , and the problem will worsen generation by generation.”

7. A simple act.

“Through some act of stupidity in all honesty.

With all the dangerous diseases and viruses various governments all over the world are experimenting with at any given moment, all it takes is one screw up to have some catastrophic results

And the current pandemic has shown that the general population is either unable or unwilling to respond to a disease or virus of significance.”

8. The crazies.

“Most likely nuclear war or some other form of military action.

Mutual assured destruction only applies to people who are afraid to die.

Once the crazies figure out how to build something extremely destructive, they will set of a chain of events that can’t be undone.”

9. Stupidity.

“Our own stupidity (in America anyway).

Too many think covid-19 is a hoax by (all?) The government(s) to remove our freedoms….the whole world is going through this, idiots, not just one country.

America’s President didn’t get with all the leaders of the world and convince them to shut down absolutely everything worldwide just to take American freedoms.

But yes, some of our rights are being trodden on, I’m not saying its not happening, but it’s a side effect, not the cause.”

10. Hell hole.

“Overpopulation, honestly.

The insane amount of people will outnumber the amount of food the earth can produce and it will become a hell hole.”

11. Keep an eye on it.

“Let’s watch out for South Korea.

They made a study and it says Korean people will be extinct in 300 years because newer generations ditch marriage and having a family.”

12. Scary scenarios.

“We will either kill ourselves in war or burn out the Earth’s resources and cause such heavy global warming and pollution that life at our level cannot physically survive anymore.

Slowly, people will be unable to successfully raise children until we all filter out.”

13. Could happen…

“Unpopular opinion: I don’t think it‘s gonna be our fault.

More something like a comet hitting us, the sun exploding or something like that.”

14. Uh oh…

“Genetic manipulation will become popular in the future and we accidentally or purposefully create a new species that is better than humans.

I expect it will be a human that makes the modification to themselves to create the new species.”

15. The end of days.

“It will probably not be war because we are to smart for that so maybe something from space like a huge meteor or the sun turning into a red giant if we are still on this planet in the next billions of years.”

Well, that was certainly uplifting!

How about you?

In the comments, tell us how you think human beings will become extinct.

We look forward to hearing from you!

The post People Offer Theories About How They Believe Humans Will Become Extinct appeared first on UberFacts.

People Talk About How Humans Will Become Extinct

It’s kind of scary, but you’ve probably considered it at one point or another.

How will human beings become extinct?

What will be the final catalyst that wipes us off the planet for good?

Are you ready to do a little thinking about our existence?

Here’s what folks on AskReddit had to say about it.

1. Oh, boy…

“A highly contagious virus designed to make its host infertile without presenting any other symptoms escapes from a lab and infects everyone.”

2. A hot take.

“As a long term optimist, my favorite is evolution.

As we expand out into space through the eons eventually we diverge and evolve into new species, and what we consider human is extinct.

You can also view AI as a version of evolution and count that as well, but I personally think we can coexist with an AI we create.”

3. WAR.

“It’s got to be war.

We literally have a weapon that can wipe out an entire country, now multiply the amount of that weapon by thousands.

One day countries and leaders will face a breaking point through clashing ideologies and before we even knew it, we already fucked ourselves over.”

4. Irreparable damage.

“By irreparably damaging our biosphere.

Takes a biosphere to evolve and sustain a complex living organism like us, destroy that and we probably won’t last long.”

5. That’s not pleasant.

“Slow and painful.

Slowly losing clean water until we’re a desert planet and we die.”

6. That’s not good.

“I’d say we’ll either kill each other for resources due to overpopulation or (which by now I think is more likely) a pandemic worse than the coronavirus will collapse health and economic systems throughout the world which will lead to supply shortages then maybe to war.”

7. Something to think about…

“Humans will biologically die out. I think at we could maybe reach a point where sentimental value of being a human is slowly gone in favour of something else, like being a machine, uploading consciousness.

We may be our real selves but digital, or just a program with personality effectively killing the host and stealing their memory, while retaining their information, soulless.

Either way, it won’t be human.”

8. Human error.

“I think we will make a mistake. Something like, we send the majority of the population to another planet, but they crash. Or, we couldn’t get to another planet in time.

Humans make mistakes. It’s about time we make a big one.”

9. Or maybe a machine?

“It could even be machine error. In 1983, at the height of the Cold War (during Reagan’s era), the USSR detected multiple incoming ICBM missiles allegedly launched by the US.

Turns out the system mistook a particular alignment of sunlight for nukes. Had it not been for Stanislav Petrov, a USSR officer who decided against retaliation despite all evidence pointing towards an attack, we would have had full blown nuclear war and humanity may very well be extinct today.”

10. This is scary.

“Honestly, a massive asteroid. (I’m talking miles in diameter).

I mean nuclear war is devastating but just think about the colossal amount of energy released during such an impact event (billions of nukes).

The worst part? There’s pretty much nothing we can do about it with our current technology.”

11. Our fault.

“We’ll probably damage the environment to a point where we can no longer live in it.

In the last 100 years we’ve been burning through Earth’s resources like we have another planet to move to.”

12. Two theories.

“Two likely options:

Climate collapse.

Might not be the direct cause of human extinction, but it would certainly prompt a lot of candidates for human extinction.

Nations going to war with each other as their land goes underwater or becomes otherwise uninhabitable, wars over the last remaining resources, increased temperatures across the globe result in more heatstroke deaths and tropical diseases spreading across the globe.

In that scenario, either nuclear war or uncontrolled disease kills us all.

Massive collapse of technology.

A coronal mass ejection cripples all technology on Earth- life support systems, planes, power plants, anything more complex than a radio is rendered unusable. Within hours, millions are dead. As supply chains collapse across the globe, famine becomes a part of life for many.

With today’s level of dependence on technology, it would knock us back to being an agrarian species. And the more technologically advanced we get, the worse a coronal mass ejection becomes.

Imagine a time when most humans have complex cybernetics- a coronal mass ejection would literally kill billions as their body’s electronic components failed. It would deal us a blow we could never recover from.”

13. As simple as that.

“Stupidity.

Or I should say the rapidly increasing gulf between common and academic knowledge.

Science is moving faster than the average person’s intellect because we have coddled being fucking morons for decades now.

Look at how Covid has been handled in the scientific vs. common communities and imagine that level of dissonance in an even greater threat.”

14. I’m sorry I’ll miss this.

“An asteroid composed of dinosaurs will crash into the Earth and they’ll eat us all.”

People sure are creative, aren’t they?

Okay, now we want to hear from you!

If you had to guess, how do you think human beings will become extinct?

Let us know in the comments!

The post People Talk About How Humans Will Become Extinct appeared first on UberFacts.

NASA Found a “Dragon” on Mars…Let’s Take a Look

Mars is a fascinating planet we’re only just beginning to understand thanks in part to NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The MRO is equipped with a High Resolution Imagine Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera that has already taken some amazing pictures. But fantasy and sci-fi fans have noticed that the MRO has captured images that really speak to their nerdy sense of entertainment.

Fans of Star Trek can point to this imprint of the Starfleet Emblem. See for yourself!

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona

Take a look at this close-up!

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona

The MRO has also captured images of what looks like the House Stark Direwolf sigil from Game of Thrones.

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona

Mars is prone to dry dust avalanches that cause changes to the makeup of the planet’s surface.

The HiRISE MRO then caught the changes to this landscape, which you can see in black below.

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona

So how is it possible to get such detailed pictures of Mars’ surface? Great question! The MRO HiRISE camera has been orbiting around Mars since 2006 and is the most powerful camera to ever grace the orbit of another planet.

With its super-high resolution of 30 centimeters, or 11.8 inches, per pixel, the MRO HiRISE camera really gives you a feel for life on Mars. The camera has only captured images of about 2.4% of Mars’ surface.

The MRO continues to take pictures of a rocky formation called Melas Chasma, which is a part of a canyon system called Valles Marineris.

Check out this formation, which looks like a dragon from space!

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona

Pretty cool, huh?

In the meantime, the HiRISE continues to monitor Mars’ surface and revealing photos to the public as they come. You can check out their discoveries on Twitter.

What did you think of these photos? Do these really look like the symbols we think they are?

Share your opinion in the comments below!

The post NASA Found a “Dragon” on Mars…Let’s Take a Look appeared first on UberFacts.