Astronauts Spill: A List Of The Strangest Things Seen In Space
Astronauts
The stars have always seemed out of reach to civilians. A lot of young children growing up used to dream about becoming astronauts, but today those dreams have been replaced with things like video game design or investing in crypto-currency.
But recently astronauts have spilled the beans on many secrets. Take a look at this list to see some incredible things that astronauts have seen while in space and maybe you’ll once again want to shoot for the stars.
Surface Of The Moon
Everyone can say they’ve looked up at night and seen the moon. Depending on the region or season the moon can be much prettier or bigger. But only astronauts have gotten a much closer look at it.
This photo shows a lunar shuttle closing the gap to land on the moon’s surface. It almost looks like snow.
Celestial Event
Celestial events are any events that involve celestial objects. They can be the cycles of the moon or the Earth rotating around the Sun but in this case, it’s Jupiter.
This celestial event caught on film is one of Jupiter’s moons rotating around it. Jupiter has around 79 moons and 53 are officially named.
Outer Space
This photo shows the curve of the planet from outer space. One can see the different layers of the atmosphere with the blue outline of the planet. The dark object in the foreground is a satellite.
You can see the surface of the planet and how barren it is from space.
Another Galaxy
Here’s Messa 51a or better known as the Spiral Galaxy. It is located 31 million light-years away from earth and in the right conditions can be seen with a pair of binoculars.
The galaxy is studied by professional astronomers because of its peculiar spirals that extend outwards.
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable satellite that orbits the earth. It acts as a place of research in many relevant fields like astronomy and astrobiology. Many astronauts from many different countries have all visited the space station since it was built and launched in 1998.
The astronaut in the photo is outside of the station doing a “spacewalk”.
Cydonia
Cydonia is a section of Mars that can be viewed with a telescope. There are many craters to be found on the surface but that’s not the only thing of interest to be found. Between the Barandas and Bamberg craters, there is the face of Mars.
It’s called the “face of Mars” it’s a unique formation that looks just like a person’s face when viewing it from above.
Our Solar System
Our Solar system comprises Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The system also has many moons and dwarf planets like Pluto. But have you ever seen a photo of it?
Our solar system is one of countless in the Milky Way galaxy.
Andromeda Galaxy
Outside of the Milky Way are many other galaxies. One of them is the Andromeda galaxy. The galaxy is named after Perseus’ wife in Greek mythology – Andromeda, an Ethiopian princess.
Andromeda is the closest large galaxy to ours and can be viewed from a telescope under the right conditions.
Nebulae
Nebulae are groups of interstellar gas (hydrogen, dust, and other molecules) that have a very small weight to size ratio. For example, a nebula as big as Earth would only weigh a few pounds. Nebulae were originally thought to be any interstellar mass far from earth.
The Andromeda Galaxy that was mentioned earlier was originally thought to be a nebula.
Oumuamua
Asteroids aren’t normally a big deal but a recent discovery turned a lot of astronomers’ heads. A very strange-looking asteroid now named Oumuamua shot past Earth. What makes the asteroid so important is that it’s the first interstellar asteroid to come to our solar system.
This means that it could be studied to see what foreign materials are still on it from wherever it came from.
Earth
Here’s a beautiful view from the International Space Station. The photo shows the surface of the Earth obscured by clouds. The reason why the oceans are blue from space is that water absorbs red and yellow light well but reflects a lot of blue.
This is due to blue having shorter wavelengths.
Knocking
While traveling in his spacecraft in 2003, Yang Liwei thought for sure that he heard something knocking from the outside. The strangest thing was that when he checked the porthole there was nothing around.
Even weirder is that space is a vacuum which means if it was from the outside there couldn’t have been a noise.
Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong allegedly said some pretty incriminating things when reporting to NASA, “These babies were huge, sir! Enormous! Oh, God! You wouldn’t believe it! … I’m telling you there are other spacecraft out there … lined up on the far side of the crater’s edge! … They’re on the moon watching us!”
No one knows for sure if these allegations are true but since then Armstrong has kept his secrets close.
Vladimir Kovalyonok
Armstrong isn’t the only astronaut to see a UFO. Kovalyonok, a Russian astronaut, allegedly saw a UFO while looking out of his spacecraft.
“It was hard to determine the size and the speed of an object in space. That is why I can not say exactly, which size it was. [My partner Viktor] Savinykh prepared to take a picture of it, but the UFO exploded. Only clouds of smoke were left. The object split into two interconnected pieces. It was reminiscent of a dumbbell. I reported about it to the Mission Control immediately.”