There are so many mysteries out there and some of the oddest stars out there are completely baffling. We are well acquainted with ordinary stars like the Sun but there are plenty of strange celestial objects which baffle science. Included in these bizarre space phenomena are stars that expand and contract in strange manners, stars that fade in and out of existence, and even stars that consist for the most of diamonds. The study of these mysterious stars is one of the most fascinating areas of astronomy and scientists are still trying to understand these rare cosmic events.
There are some stars that break the rules of physics. Some of these weirdest stars do the unusual, shining with weird colors, having extreme densities or being virtually impossible to explain. These unusual stars have only really been discovered in recent years, due to the new advances in telescopes and space technology.
Neutron stars that spin rapidly and emit radiation beams are called pulsars. Yet, one pulsar in particular, namely PSR J1748-2446ad, has so far the fastest rotation rate of a neutron star ever measured. Astonishingly, it spins 716 times per second. This is one of those very rare cosmic events that delight scientists by imagining a celestial object the size of a city spinning at such an incredible speed. Through radio waves that come in the form of pulses, these stars pulse on and off like a lighthouse.
The fundamental rules of physics have been broken by some mysterious stars. Dubbed the Methuselah star, a star called HD 140283 is older than the universe itself. This star is more or less 14.46 billion years old, whereas the universe is calculated to be about 13.8 billion years old. This is one of the most debated topics in astronomy and astronomers still cant solve the mystery of how a star could be older than the cosmos.
But some white dwarfs are very strange indeed. A good example is WD 1145+017, a white dwarf that is in the process of eating its neighboring planet. Pieces of rocky debris get torn apart while spiraling into the star, and it appears that scientists have seen the pieces before. It is the most unusual star seen yet as it lets us peer into the violent destruction of planetary systems.
And there are other strange objects in the realm of celestial objects beyond individual stars which make astronomers wonder what they know about the universe. Some of these phenomena include odd shaped stars, stars which seem to blink in and out existence, and even cosmic events that are apparently impossible.
KIC 8462852, or as Tabby’s star is known officially, is one of the most bizarre stars ever found. However, unlike other normal stars which dim predictably, Tabby’s Star dims and brightens at random with no discernable pattern. Various scientists believe that the unknown type of dust cloud or perhaps an alien megastructure is hiding the star's light. The alien theory is unlikely, but the mystery of Tabby’s Star has not been solved.
Star completely turns into huge diamond is one of the rare cosmic events in the universe. BPM 37093, also dubbed 'Lucy' (after the Beatles song) is a white dwarf, which has cooled down and crystallized. The core of this star is estimated to be a solid diamond of the order of magnitude in carats of about 10 billion trillion trillion. It is therefore one of the weirdest stars known, which proves that space has a lot of surprises in store.
What if the star you are looking at, through a telescope is suddenly erased? A star known as N6946-BH1 behaved in just the manner expected with a black hole. It was brightly visible to the scientists for years before simply fading away. This is because when a large star dies, it either blows up in a supernova or gravity pulls it into a black hole. In this case, however, there was no explosion, only an instantaneous disappearance. It is one of the most strange celestial objects that scientists have ever recorded, and some believe the star collapsed directly into a black hole.
Stars that may contain yet undiscovered types of matter, or show weirdness, are among the weirdest space phenomena. Ultracool stars can help provide insight into the hidden aspects of physics and may challenge common understanding about how the universe works.
Even neutron stars are pretty dense, some scientists think they exist even more dense stars. Under those conditions, the resulting objects would be weird exotics called quarks, arranged into what are theoretically called quark stars. If they do exist, quark stars would be smaller and denser than neutron stars, with the immeasurably heavy differentiation of entire particles, utterly compressed material in an extremely small space. No quark stars have been confirmed as yet but strange extraterrestrial bodies may appear to prove they exist.
While their magnetic fields are nevertheless so strong that they can distort atoms and generate bizarre space phenomena, some stars are making these discoveries. Magnetars, these stars have magnetic fields trillions of times stronger than Earth’s. The data on a credit card could be abruptly erased from dozens of miles away if you got too close to a magnetar. Although these are some of the weirdest stars known to science, astronomers are still fascinated by their extreme nature.
The heat of some of these mysterious stars ejects streams of heavy metal into space. This behavior is characteristic of a star of a type – a Wolf-Rayet star. They burn through their fuel so fast that, for example, they produce powerful winds that carry iron and nickel through the galaxy. Heavy elements that later form new planets, even life itself, are spread by these rare cosmic events.
Each time, the discoveries renew us: we don’t know the value of anything when we think we know what the universe is all about. Strange celestial objects and weird stars force the ends of science and push astronomy further than it has gone before, making astronomers come up with new theories and explanations. In turn, these bizarre space phenomena demonstrate that reality is almost always more strange than it was imagined.
As we acquire more advanced telescopes and space missions ahead of us, we can anticipate that we will make even more unanticipated discoveries of strange stars and rare cosmic events. In a universe of unimaginable mysteries, and yet we are still discovering them, we could see some celestial objects in our universe that may beat us in their beauty or unimaginable strangeness. And until then, space will be more mysterious and fascinating than we ever could have imagined the universe to be, and the weirdest stars will keep reminding us.
This content was created by AI