119. Big Baby Galaxies
Year Found: 2008
Who Found It: Spitzer
Location: N/A
For the vast majority of the time, infrared light can be more sure of the appropriate gas and clouds of dust than visible light. As a result, Spitzer has chosen to give users access to previously unimaginable views of star-forming regions. In the Rho Ophiuchus dark cloud, this Spitzer photograph represents young stars peeping out from under their natal layer of dust.
Big Baby’ Galaxies ©NASA Image Collection/Alamy
This cloud, which astronomers refer to as Rho Oph, is one of the star-forming regions that are most nearby to our Solar System. The nebula, which can be seen in the sky near the stars and planets Scorpius and Ophiuchus, is about 410 light years away from our planet.
120. 7 Earth-Size Planets
Year Found: 2017
Who Found It: Michael Gillon
Location: TRAPPIST-1
TRAPPIST-1 is known as a red dwarf star and is most definitely the most common category of stars in our known Milky Way. Three of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are located pretty firmly in the habitable zone of the star, also known as the Goldilocks Zone, a location in which liquid water can exist on a planet’s surface.
7 Earth-Size Planets ©berni0004/Shutterstock
Seven planets the size of Earth have been found in 2017 orbiting the sun TRAPPIST-1, which is located only 39 light-years away from our planet. The research team used the TRAPPIST telescope at the La Silla Observatory, located in Chile to study the star was led by Michael Gillon of the University of Liege in Belgium.
121. Methane On Mars
Year Found: 2013
Who Found It: Curiosity Rover
Location: Planet Mars
Over the past few decades, Mars has been the subject of more missions than any other object, and all of those missions have helped us piece together a fairly complete history of the Red Planet. With lakes and oceans and all the necessary ingredients for life, we can now be certain that it was once a wet world.
Methane On Mars ©Triff/Shutterstock
Methane specifically in this case could be the representation of a sign of current or past microbial life, so planetary scientists and exobiologists are extremely interested in its presence and concentration in the Martian atmosphere.
122. First Image of A Black Hole
Year Found: 2019
Who Found It: NASA
Location: M87
A direct image of a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy has been captured by telescopes all over the world, marking the first time that astronomers have ever been successful in imaging a black hole. Or perhaps a black hole’s ”shadow”.
First Image of A Black Hole ©2DAssets/Shutterstock
Although a black hole doesn’t emit any light, its powerful gravitational pull causes the light from nearby gas clouds to get bent and deflected. The image has not been captured directly using visible light. A ray of light may occasionally almost entirely circle a black hole before it manages to escape, and then it travels in the direction of Earth. As a result, a dark semi-shaded object is encircled by a ring of light.
123. Vesta
Year Found: 1807
Who Found It: Heinrich Willhelm Matthias Olbers
Location: Asteroid Belt
Vesta is one of the largest objects that exists in the Asteroid belt and it got its name from the Roman goddess of home and heart. The person behind this discovery is the German astronomer Heinrich Willhelm Matthias Olbers and the discovery itself happened in the year 1807.
Vesta ©Photo 12/Alamy
This is the most brilliant asteroid that Earth can see. It is frequently faint enough to be seen with the naked eye, with brightnesses as bright as magnitude 5.1. Even though it orbits the Sun entirely within that of Ceres, its maximum distance from the Sun is a little bit greater than Ceres’ minimum distance.
124. Dark Matter In The Bullet Cluster
Year Found: Mid 2000s
Who Found It: A group of astronomers from NASA
Location: The galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56
Alternative explanations are beginning to look more appealing, as there is currently no specific and convincing experimental evidence to support what kind of particle is responsible for dark matter. But over the past 16 years or so, it has become here way clearer, though, how dark matter possibly could be affecting the motion of stars and galaxies.
Dark Matter In The Bullet Cluster NASA/CXC/M. Weiss/Wikimedia Commons
It should be noted, though also, that a group of astronomers had measured the mass of the Bullet Cluster in the middle of the 2000s and discovered that, even when using a different theory of gravity, the distribution was somewhat different from what was originally predicted with only the basic and normal matter. This result confirmed in this case that dark matter is real.
125. Double Quasar Image
Year Found: 1979
Who Found It: A group of researchers at NASA
Location: Double Quasar
The Twin Quasar was the first known gravitationally lensed object, and it was found in 1979. Due to gravitational lensing which has been brought on by the galaxy YGKOW G1, which is situated directly between Earth and the quasar, the object is a quasar that appears as two separately seen different images.
Double Quasar Image @Bla22022022/Pinterest
In an attempt to try to calculate an estimate of the universe’s expansion rate, a team of researchers has used the Hubble Space Telescope to take a gander at a quasar from the beginning phases of the universe’s creation. Their results, which conflict with other measurements, show that the universe is expanding by far more quickly now than when it did then. Physics experts must now determine whether their theories are completely inaccurate or if another strange phenomenon is currently at play.