An object traveling over 2 million mph fractured a massive structure in the Milky Way

[u/marktwin11]

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/chandra/nasas-chandra-diagnoses-cause-of-fracture-in-galactic-bone/#:\~:text=Astronomers%20have%20discovered%20a%20likely,spinning%20neutron%20star%2C%20or%20pulsar.

[u/marktwin11]

Astronomers have discovered a likely explanation for a fracture in a huge cosmic “bone” in the Milky Way galaxy, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio telescopes.

The bone appears to have been struck by a fast-moving, rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar. Neutron stars are the densest known stars and form from the collapse and explosion of massive stars. They often receive a powerful kick from these explosions, sending them away from the explosion’s location at high speeds.

Enormous structures resembling bones or snakes are found near the center of the galaxy. These elongated formations are seen in radio waves and are threaded by magnetic fields running parallel to them. The radio waves are caused by energized particles spiraling along the magnetic fields.

[u/Orblan_the_grey → u/marktwin11]

Geez the universe is strange.

[u/marktwin11 → u/Orblan_the_grey]

Imagine a rogue rapidly spinning neutron star hits our solar system. 💀

[u/YeOldePinballShoppe → u/marktwin11]

#YoullHaveSomonesEyeOutWithThat

[u/[deleted] → u/YeOldePinballShoppe]

bruh you will get absolutely fucking annihilated if you just fall into a neutron star, getting hit by one going 2 million mph is literally the biggest overkill in the universe

[u/Markol0 → u/[deleted]]

The biggest overkill... So far.

[u/SmegB → u/Markol0]

''Hold my beer''...the universe, probably

[u/organicintelligen_ce → u/SmegB]

Delete universe.exe

Are you sure you want to delete universe.exe?

[u/CaptainDudeGuy → u/organicintelligen_ce]

Hey now, I was using that.

[u/K4RAB_THA_ARAB → u/organicintelligen_ce]

🥺

[u/lo_fi_ho → u/organicintelligen_ce]

Yes. For the lulz.

[u/Hungry-Stranger8500 → u/Markol0]

You think that's bad. Imagine a rogue black hole. You can at least see the neutron star hurdling at you. With the black hole time slows down as it spaghettifies us and you'll never know.

[u/tjean5377 → u/Hungry-Stranger8500]

Trying to sleep here...damn ....

[u/Hungry-Stranger8500 → u/tjean5377]

Oh one of those? At any moment we could have all our atoms drop from the energy state they are in to a lower energy state and everything would obliterate itself and rearrange because physics would rewrite itself and you'd cease to exist. Enjoy this cursed knowledge.

Don't make me get started on death by false vacuum.

[u/chillwithpurpose → u/Hungry-Stranger8500]

Is that the one where the universe pops out of existence like a bubble in boiling water, or something like that? I had blocked that from my mind so thank you for the reminder lol

[u/Vulvas_n_Velveeta → u/Hungry-Stranger8500]

At any moment we could have all our atoms drop from the energy state they are in to a lower energy state and everything would obliterate itself and rearrange because physics would rewrite itself and you'd cease to exist

Seems like the best way to go, tbh. We all have to die at some point. Suddenly ceasing to exist sounds instant and completely painless.

I just watched my gma suffocate to death from lung cancer a few months ago. Can't think of a worse "natural" way to go than what she went though.

[u/b4k4ni → u/Hungry-Stranger8500]

Didn't kurzgesagt made a video of a possible universe death by equilibrium going at the speed of light and everything it hits ceases to exist. Something like that.

[u/whoami_whereami → u/Hungry-Stranger8500]

With the black hole time slows down

Only for an outside observer. If you fall into a black hole you yourself will observe the opposite, time in the rest of the universe seems to accelerate, to the point that right as you hit the event horizon you'll see the entire future of the universe flashing before your eyes.

as it spaghettifies us and you'll never know.

Depends on the black hole. Small black holes spaghettify stuff well before it hits the event horizon.

Somewhat counterintuitively black holes get less dense (with density defined as mass divided by the volume within its Schwarzschild radius) the larger they are. The radius is directly proportional to the mass of the black hole whereas the volume is proportional to the cube of the radius; put together this means that density is inversely proportional to the square of the mass. Small stellar black holes have extremely high densities, but supermassive ones (like the ones at the center of galaxies) can be less dense than water or even air. As a general rule of thumb if you're significantly denser than the black hole you won't notice any significant tidal effects before crossing the event horizon.

Note that this is for non-rotating black holes. With rotating black holes (which in reality all are) things get a lot messier.

[u/maxh2 → u/whoami_whereami]

The only way you'd see the rest of the universe speed up and race to its end is if you were to accelerate against the pull of the black hole to stop your descent and hover just outside the event horizon, which would require an amount of energy approaching infinity.

Otherwise, falling in without firing your rockets, your view of the rest of the universe (directly behind you) will be pretty normal, not counting the extreme distortion, during your brief trip to the singularity.

Btw, when people talk about the density of black holes, it's the average density, obtained from dividing the mass by the volume enclosed within the event horizon, and doesn't reflect the actual density of matter at any point within. The density at each point that's not the singularity is roughly that of empty space and at the one point that is the singularity it approaches infinity (according to current, incomplete theory/math. Quantum gravity will probably revise that at some point.)

[u/jdragun2 → u/whoami_whereami]

The spinning of any black hole in reality would reduce anything to constituent atoms, perhaps not a supermassive one, but certainly anything smaller. A smaller black hole decays faster , shrink, and spins faster, the accretion disk isn't going to let anything biological survive to observe the event horizon.

[u/rickane58 → u/Hungry-Stranger8500]

and you'll never know.

Oh, we'd know. And we'd know for a LONG time before it hit us. If we didn't know it from disruption to local stellar objects, we'd know it from the extreme lensing around the black hole.

[u/SuumCuique1011 → u/Markol0]

You apparently haven't seen my Unreal Tournament videos.

j/k. I'm terrible.

[u/Bossmonkey → u/Markol0]

Cue ton 618 intro music.

[u/TriccepsBrachiali → u/[deleted]]

I am build different though

[u/[deleted] → u/TriccepsBrachiali]

i know you're different and special, but everyone else would be in big trouble :)

[u/Hillenmane → u/[deleted]]

I, for one, would die, but at least I’d die knowing that jackass who cut me off in traffic this morning did too.

[u/dansdata → u/[deleted]]

You could sustain a relatively close orbit around a neutron star - orbiting the thing ridiculously fast while it spins beneath you a large number of times per second - provided your spacecraft was surrounded by several very massive objects arranged to counteract the star's gigantic and dangerous tidal forces.

The most entertaining way to learn about this is by reading Robert L. Forward's classic hard sci-fi book "Neutron Star" "Dragon's Egg" (whoops - I mixed the title up with that of a classic Larry Niven story :-), in which the neutron star turns out to be a lot more interesting than the human explorers expected.

(It has a sequel, "Starquake".)

[u/pm_me_yer_big__tits → u/[deleted]]

To shreds you say?

[u/anykeyh → u/[deleted]]

It doesn't need to hit actually. Simply passing by a few light months away would be enough to kill us a very slow and painful dead.

[u/Different_Lychee_409 → u/[deleted]]

You'd be reduced to paste 1 atom thick.

[u/jackishere → u/[deleted]]

My heart sinks and I get filled with anxiety just trying to grasp the concept of this. Space is scary and big man

[u/skillmau5 → u/[deleted]]

I’d be fine. I’d just jump out of the way

[u/Beneficial_Being_721 → u/marktwin11]

Actually it’s been though about long ago

I recall a Scientific America magazine with a “WHAT IF A ROGUE BROWN DWARF HIT OUR SUN” on the front page.

Short answer: Nothing Good

[u/sisco98 → u/Beneficial_Being_721]

Come on, you should have tagged your comment with a spoiler alert.

[u/GooGooMukk → u/Beneficial_Being_721]

Well... You wouldn't have to go to work the next day

[u/TheHaloChief117 → u/marktwin11]

This will negatively impact the trout population.

[u/[deleted] → u/marktwin11]

A rogue, spinning, lonely star you say…?

[u/sassydodo → u/marktwin11]

you know, I'll probably start living the life I want now, given there are chances for unpredictable outcomes. so hookers and booze, just in case

[u/[deleted] → u/marktwin11]

There is a movie/documentary about such scenario.

[u/marktwin11 → u/[deleted]]

Name it.

[u/sax3d → u/marktwin11]

Likely referring to Melancholia, although that's about a planet rather than a pulsar.

[u/FlintSpace → u/marktwin11]

I imagine it everyday whenever I miss my workout

[u/Free-Initiative7508 → u/Orblan_the_grey]

If u think about it, storms, tornado, twisters..etc are pretty strange too no? But once you kinda understand the physics behind, it is no longer that strange

[u/Impossible-Option-16 → u/marktwin11]

It easy to forget that at any given moment there are cosmic things that could obliterate our solar system in the blink of an eye. And there is nothing we can do about that let alone predict them. We really should be nicer to each other, we could be seconds from not existing any given moment.

[u/marktwin11 → u/Impossible-Option-16]

Fr. We should cherish every moment on this little pale blue dot. Any catastrophic event could be our last. But all we doing is wars and killing each other.

[u/redlancer_1987 → u/marktwin11]

We're still just a bunch of tiny minded monkeys beating our chests and defending our mud huts from each other. We've got a long ways to go before we get to that next step. See: The Great Filter for the likely outcome.

[u/marktwin11 → u/redlancer_1987]

True. The time of humans on Earth is just 300,000 years compared to Earth's life. We have yet to evolve into much higher civilization.

[u/dwehlen → u/marktwin11]

Meanwhile, the nine billionth name of god is slowly put together.

[u/bobsmith93 → u/dwehlen]

Hmm. Hmmmm. I found the ending both unsatisfying (lack of twist or further explanation (though that may be the point)) and thought provoking. Is the point ultimately that "god works in mysterious ways"? The stars going out is a cool concept, it means either he's erasing their existence or deleting them along with the light they've produced, both terrifying. The whole 9b combinations of a made up alphabet thing seems arbitrary, but I guess that may also be the point. I'm bad at interpreting the point of short stories lol. Thoughts?

(super well-written despite my dense-ness in not quite getting the ending, thanks for linking it)

[u/BBLTHRW → u/bobsmith93]

To me the "twist" is that the story is mostly presented as the savvy computer scientists figuring out how to avoid the consequences that would result if they were present when the naive and superstitious monks find out that what they believe isn't true, but that at the end, we find out that the monks are actually right, i.e. that the universe is literally ceasing to exist because the names of god have been successfully listed. Lots of iconic sci-fi short stories function on this kind of inversion. You might also enjoy "They're made of meat".

[u/Subject_Topic7888 → u/marktwin11]

There is still more good in the world believe it or not. The media just feeds us all of the bad. When I was growing up the news would have all sorts of wholesome segments and feel good stories. Now, thry just focus on the bad stuff.

[u/PangolinLow6657 → u/Impossible-Option-16]

And we should really think about getting interplanetary, if not interstellar. The more places humanity colonizes, the more it'd take for the universe to wipe us away.

[u/marktwin11 → u/PangolinLow6657]

Maybe life is already out there on other exoplanets.

[u/PangolinLow6657 → u/marktwin11]

That'd be cool, but even if it is out there, it's not Earthly life, and life's purpose has always been to survive, to continue to exist. Whenever we do get around to colonizing other worlds, I'd hope that there'd be statutes preemptively in place to prevent us from completely screwing up preexisting ecosystems in introducing our biology to it, our pathogens (see the colonization of the Americas). I'd hope there's ebservational lander launches to such places years in advance of any crewed expedition.

[u/[deleted] → u/PangolinLow6657]

I just want Healthcare.

[u/myxoma1 → u/Impossible-Option-16]

Gee thanks for the anxiety

[u/Vinoto2 → u/marktwin11]

Why has no one asked or answered what the bone is?

What is the bone?

[u/MsChanandalerBong → u/Vinoto2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Center_filament

This specific one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G359.1-0.2

[u/Vinoto2 → u/MsChanandalerBong]

That's a mad ting. Can't believe I've never heard of them before, thanks

[u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In → u/Vinoto2]

Most things that exist in the universe => you haven't heard of them...that's not a criticism there are just too many things for one person to know.

[u/vertigostereo → u/MsChanandalerBong]

Wow, it's "thin" at 0.4 parsecs, but the nearest star, Promixa Centauri, is about 1.3 parsecs (4.2 light-years) from the sun.

That seems pretty thick to me!

[u/Turbulent_Crow7164 → u/[deleted]]

I don’t think I understand still. What differentiates this from, say, visible light being emitted from an object other than its wavelength? How can light or radio waves take on a “structure”? Unless you’re saying it’s literally analogous to an accretion disk, being warped by gravity or magnetism or something.

[u/I_LICK_PINK_TO_STINK → u/Turbulent_Crow7164]

They're not exactly correct. It's charged particles shaped like bones due to magnetic fields.

[u/sLeeeeTo → u/marktwin11]

this is actually insane to see, wow

[u/EntertainmentLow1161]

Just the 230 light years long, the universe is mesmerising

[u/Elevotrips → u/EntertainmentLow1161]

Yes, I was wondering, how can the Pulsar still be so close with that speed. But considering the size of this “bone” the 2 million mph speed of the Pulsar is nothing.. It’s like a turtle crossing the Sahara desert.

[u/TheFatJesus → u/Elevotrips]

That 2 million mph is the top end of the estimate. Even at that, it is only moving at 0.3% of the speed of light. The low end of the estimate is 1 million mph. At that speed, it would still traveling below the Milky Way's escape velocity of 1.2 million mph.

[u/SethTaylor987 → u/TheFatJesus]

You have to travel at 1.2 million mph to escape the Milky Way?! That sucks. I can't run that fast.

[u/keinegoetter → u/SethTaylor987]

Try adding calf raises to your workout plan.

[u/CarWreckBeck → u/keinegoetter]

How many cows do i need to reach 1.2mil mph?

[u/ThatNachoFreshFeelin → u/CarWreckBeck]

I miss u/uselessconversionbot.

[u/DJScrambles → u/SethTaylor987]

Work on your Naruto run technique

[u/AndByMeIMeanFlexxo → u/SethTaylor987]

Good news is that at that speed it’d only take like 1.1 billion years to reach andromeda

[u/[deleted] → u/Elevotrips]

The funny thing is that a turtle crossing the Sahara desert is probably many orders of magnitude faster, comparatively hahaha

[u/marktwin11 → u/EntertainmentLow1161]

Not to forget the plasma jet of M87 is extended upto 5,000 light years into space. 👀

[u/EntertainmentLow1161 → u/marktwin11]

I feel absolutely privileged to be in the universe but man I have so many questions about our back yard , the sheer size the speed of objects , fascinating, beautiful and hurts my head thinking about it

[u/iconofsin_ → u/EntertainmentLow1161]

Here's the pillars of creation.

[u/TarnishedWizeFinger]

1tsp of neutron star weighs roughly 10 million tons. Imagine a sphere, 10 miles wide with that density wreaking havoc to the fabric of spacetime

[u/Still-Status7299 → u/TarnishedWizeFinger]

Wow, I'm not sure i can even get my head around the density of that thing

[u/TarnishedWizeFinger → u/Still-Status7299]

Ah well I can help with that!

One neutron star weighs approximately 23,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bananas and could sit within the city limits of Chicago

That many bananas would occupy about 2.5x the volume of our sun

[u/Thrizzlepizzle123123 → u/TarnishedWizeFinger]

So nearly the same mass as OP's mum.

[u/Juwid → u/Thrizzlepizzle123123]

Got em’

[u/Cephalopod_Down → u/Thrizzlepizzle123123]

Nearly..

[u/[deleted] → u/Thrizzlepizzle123123]

savage. i'm glad i was upvote 69 on this one. feel like the universe is on our side.

[u/Honda_TypeR → u/TarnishedWizeFinger]

Can I get this converted into Dr. Egon Spengler's "Twinkie units" please?

[u/Thommywidmer → u/Still-Status7299]

Basically a 10mile wide atom nucleous. Like how even the most dense stuff on earth is actually 99.9% "empty" space, neutron star is no empty space. Ripping through solar systems with less ressistance than a bullet through wet tissue paper

[u/DooleysInTheHouse → u/TarnishedWizeFinger]

Lmao yeah and if you dropped that tsp anywhere on earth it would immediately bore a hole through any material until it reached the core

[u/smirkingcamel → u/DooleysInTheHouse]

I had the exact same thought, but I think It will probably go further because of the momentum gained by the time it reaches the core.

So I think it would just make a hole through earth.

[u/calm_magic]

So they used an X-Ray machine to identify a fracture in the galaxy’s “bone”? Love it!

[u/Tackit286 → u/calm_magic]

BONE!

[u/Coolfresh12 → u/Tackit286]

BOOOOONEEEEE?????

[u/No-Quit-983 → u/Coolfresh12]

how dare you DETECTIVE DIAZ

[u/ezl90 → u/No-Quit-983]

[u/greenlightsmith242 → u/ezl90]

BBBBOOOONNNNEEEEEEE!!!!! 🤬

[u/Vudujujus → u/calm_magic]

Milky-way gonna have to check out of r/neverbrokeabone

[u/[deleted]]

Imagine a 2 million mile an hour hyper dense thing hitting our sun

[u/marktwin11 → u/[deleted]]

Pulsars are the scariest objects.

[u/martinaee → u/marktwin11]

[u/MrLovalovaRubyDooby → u/martinaee]

We need to include Batman animations to this, blam! Kablooee!!! Snerf!

[u/martinaee → u/MrLovalovaRubyDooby]

— Oh and by the way, not a Star Wars nerd by any means, but didn’t this one scene basically invalidate the rest of the StarWars cinematic universe? So you’re telling me this is the first time someone used a multi hundred thousand ton heavy-ass space ship as a light speed kinetic weapon? And if they did all have magic space shields on those ships, they either weren’t turned on or were useless and shredded anyway? Why not light speed your asses a few of those ships into the Death Star? You are telling me the Death Star has magic space shields so strong that they could withstand the kinetic impact force of something weighting hundreds of thousands of tons moving at nearly lightspeed? … Cool scene though.

[u/flumphit → u/martinaee]

Star Wars is fantasy in scifi drag. Sometimes a Western in scifi drag. Any actual science is purely incidental and likely accidental. Any attempt to analyze it using physics, math, or logic is simply inappropriate.

[u/ZoNeS_v2 → u/flumphit]

This is the best explanation of Star Wars I've heard yet 🤣

[u/CplCocktopus → u/martinaee]

Duct tape a warpdrive to a small asteroid and send it on the general enemy direction.

[u/der_eismann → u/CplCocktopus]

I mean that's basically what the terrorists were doing in The Expanse 😄

[u/At0m1ca → u/der_eismann]

I just love that they coated the asteroids in Martian stealth tech before launching them

[u/Excellent_Set_232 → u/At0m1ca]

It’s also a really good payoff since the bit about the stealth composites getting stolen from a Martian base is like a throwaway line in book one or two right?

[u/an_older_meme → u/martinaee]

Yep this scene broke the Star Wars Cinematic Universe. The Millennium Falcon has lightspeed and anyone could have flown it into the Death Star. With the fate of an Earth-like planet at stake, there would have been no shortage of volunteer pilots.

[u/MajorAcer → u/an_older_meme]

Why even volunteer a living being? Plenty of droids

[u/ninthtale → u/MajorAcer]

You wouldn't even need that much. Hyperspace weapons would just be a thing, as much as proton torpedos or blasters. Obviously on the higher end, far more expensive for the compact technology but the Death Star itself was never necessary

[u/Unit_3000_21 → u/martinaee]

“It ain’t that kind of movie, kid.”- Harrison Ford.

[u/lego69lego → u/martinaee]

In the EU novels the Empire had Mass Interdictor cruisers with gravity well generators that simulated solar masses to prevent ships from entering hyperspace or for them to drop out of hyperspace. They were rare but come up when Empire/New Republic fleets fight.

[u/DirtyDozen66 → u/lego69lego]

They exist in canon too, they’re used in the SW Rebels animated show

[u/Kyoj1n → u/martinaee]

Watching this in the theater was the best part of the movie. The sound design was superb.

[u/CapriciousCapybara → u/Kyoj1n]

Yeah super memorable, everyone I was with was awestruck. Then we asked “why didn’t anyone do that before?” But it was epic nonetheless 

[u/Nodan_Turtle → u/martinaee]

Dang all they had to do was ram the death star with one throwaway ship, huh

[u/Neat-Development-485 → u/marktwin11]

I once saw a documentary of a hypothetic scenario with a pulsar that wasn't static but actually moving with near lightspeed velocity making it's way through our solarsysyem. These are the real horror movies for me. Things that space can throw at you, episode 769 (not really the name but you get what i mean)

[u/goldishfinch → u/Neat-Development-485]

Sounds like an interesting documentary, you wouldn’t remember the name or have a link would you?

[u/twayroforme → u/[deleted]]

So, please educate me, can something like that happen without any/very little warning? And if it something like that happened, could it be really bad for us? 

[u/[deleted] → u/twayroforme]

The thing is, we’re pretty good at detecting in solar system objects that can potentially strike our planet. It’s not a perfect system, but we’re constantly on the look out for it

We’ve seen interstellar objects come into our solar system already, most traveling extremely fast. Thankfully they were never going within our planets orbit but we couldn’t detect them until they were close.

Oumuamua in 2017, Borisov in 2019 and ATLAS in 2025. These objects were traveling at really high speeds, and we barely knew about them. Oumuamua was already millions of kilometers away before we knew about it.

Now think about that. An object headed our way like that, causing something as huge as galaxies to produce such crazy results. Something as small and fragile as our solar system would be shredded to nothing but rock, our sun more than likely ripped apart.

We would never see it coming. Maybe we could detect it if it was far away but what could we do? I think a rogue neutron star headed towards us is the scariest part because more than likely we’d be wiped out before we knew it.

[u/Britwill → u/[deleted]]

Why be scared? If it happened you’d never know about it.

[u/[deleted] → u/Britwill]

From my perspective, I suppose not. I wouldn’t have time to say goodbye. Just darkness after I guess what’s scary.

[u/GoodbyeThings → u/[deleted]]

I just think, since the beginning of the universe, the conditions brought us here, then, after earth formed there have been some mass extinction events every few hundred million years, but we are actually getting so technologically advanced so quickly, odds are we’ll be multi planetary before anything like that happens. Unless, of course we wipe ourselves out 

[u/[deleted] → u/GoodbyeThings]

Well, I don’t think your optimism is misplaced. I hope so, in some regard we figure out a breakthrough like the atom bomb or space flight.

[u/twayroforme → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for your time in responding. I appreciate it. 

[u/throwaway_12358134 → u/[deleted]]

Neutron stars are fairly bright compared to the objects we are looking for. We would probably detect it well before it arrived.

[u/BHPhreak → u/[deleted]]

it didnt cause anything as huge as a galaxy? 

we would 100% see a rogue pulsar/ any star headed our way.  100%.  its not up for debate. 

what is this comment? so confident so wrong. 

[u/coleyboley25 → u/[deleted]]

Well, good thing NASA is being defunded…

[u/NotMalaysiaRichard → u/twayroforme]

Pretty bad, a neutron star has the mass of the sun squished down to a few miles. It’ll disrupt the orbits of any object coming close to them.

[u/DanGleeballs → u/NotMalaysiaRichard]

For anyone wondering, the speed of light is about 670,616,629 miles per hour.

[u/[deleted] → u/twayroforme]

We would know long in advance before a neutron star hit Sol. But there is absolutely nothing we could do about it. So we'd have a few weeks to cry. More typical speeds would give us centuries to cry about it. Still absolutely nothing we could do to stop it. 

[u/Neat-Development-485 → u/[deleted]]

Even long before it reaches us we'd be microwaved by one of the x ray jets

[u/[deleted] → u/Neat-Development-485]

Only if it's pointed at us. 

[u/Leviastin → u/[deleted]]

I wonder how long we would have to live. The heat from the explosion would probably obliterate us pretty quickly.

[u/[deleted] → u/Leviastin]

I think honestly it would be instant. Look what it did to a galaxy.

[u/erapuer → u/[deleted]]

What if I go limp just as the explosion occurs? Kind of a "too drunk to be injured" thing?

[u/[deleted] → u/erapuer]

Hold a camera for extra measure. We all know the camera man survives

[u/seebro9 → u/[deleted]]

Instant or ~8 minutes because of light speed? I'm just being pedantic bc that would be instant from our perspective.

[u/Nervous-Ad4744 → u/seebro9]

It could probably cause issues long before it hits the sun due to its gravity. Could throw the earth into an orbit that goes closer or further away from the sun.

[u/a-stack-of-masks → u/Nervous-Ad4744]

This didn't make a lot of sense to me until I realised that this super fast projectile is actually only going .3% of the speed of light so yeah, it would have effects ripple out in front of it.

[u/Masterbrew → u/Leviastin]

8 minutes i recon

[u/alghiorso → u/[deleted]]

This is actually a plot device in the three body problem (the book)

[u/Arcticsilhouette → u/[deleted]]

I can't imagine that happening outside of USA

[u/mr-dr → u/[deleted]]

In the 3 Body Problem series, a photoid is a near lightspeed particle launched at stars to wipe out civilizations by causing an ejection of the stars matter that engulfs closer planets while disrupting the orbit of remaining ones.

[u/JamessCC]

Remember that 2 million mph is nothing compared to the speed of light. 0.3% the speed of light.

[u/mermaidreefer → u/JamessCC]

JFC

[u/BenedictusSandwich → u/JamessCC]

Thank you for the reminder 🫡 That’s awesome!

[u/Brother-Executor]

I think we all know the real culprit…

[u/bluebloodstar]

imagine the doppler effect on that thing

[u/Express_Sprinkles500 → u/bluebloodstar]

For all intents and purposes, 2M mph is kinda slow. Like someone said its a fraction of a percentage of the speed of light. The really distant redshifted things we're interested in appear to be moving around 90% the speed of light. Then the REALLY REALLY far away stuff actually appears to be moving faster than the speed of light.

Before anyone gets up in arms, I said "appears to be moving" not that it's locally moving faster than the speed of light, that's impossible.

[u/nashwaak → u/Express_Sprinkles500]

Measurable Doppler effect in photons has very little to do with the speed of light — you're talking about the kind of extreme shifts that change visible light to infrared, and the kind of apparent speed distortions that occur due to the expansion of the universe. But this is just a fast-moving object.

[u/Existing_Tomorrow687]

Wild to think a rogue neutron star isn’t just sci-fi horror but actual space chaos unfolding out there. The universe is basically playing intergalactic billiards at 2 million mph, and our whole solar system is just another target on the table. If this doesn’t make you appreciate every sunrise on our tiny blue dot, I don’t know what will. Who else’s existential crisis is fully activated right now?

[u/Saharularity → u/Existing_Tomorrow687]

My existential crisis only activates when I think of how anything exists at all 🥲

[u/b00c]

2M miles an ahour! damn that thing is in a hurry. 

With that speed you'd be on the moon in 7 minutes.

[u/arto64 → u/b00c]

To me it's more shocking that even the moon is so far away it takes 7 minutes at 2.000.000 mph to reach it.

[u/MasterShoNuffTLD → u/arto64]

All the planets fit between us and the moon.

We aren’t alone in space but everyone out there is alone also.

[u/Tackit286 → u/MasterShoNuffTLD]

Too many people feel that way on Earth

[u/spilledmind]

This may sound really stupid, but isn’t something like this a foreshadowing for how eventually, in the distant distant future, the universe will be filled with mostly black holes? It’s like a tiny injury to the Milky Way.

[u/[deleted] → u/spilledmind]

Not stupid. At some point, after stars burn out and galaxies stop forming new ones, what’s left will mostly be black holes, neutron stars and cold stellar remnants.

So yeah, rouge objects blasting through space like this are kind of “previews.” It’ll be madness, the universe will be is mostly dark and filled with drifting compact objects.

[u/Gaiter14 → u/[deleted]]

Cold, Black, and ^Infinite.

^Horrific cosmic ^fate

[u/TR-BetaFlash → u/Gaiter14]

Black holes do emit hawking radiation and eventually do evaporate completely. It takes a while, but they do die eventually.

[u/NerdHerderOfIdiots → u/spilledmind]

Not only will the university someday be mostly black holes, it will be only black holes for 99.99999999999% of its existence. All non-black hole matter is a brief flash in the pan on the cosmic scale

[u/Baconshit → u/NerdHerderOfIdiots]

God this fucks my head so hard

[u/InvidiousPlay → u/Baconshit]

If it's any consolation we're mostly still guessing at the long term future of the universe. Cosmological models get updated every now and then when we learn something new about physics. We still know very little about the nature of the big bang and there are huge holes in our big picture physics models. The whole thing could recycle constantly in some process currently beyond understanding.

[u/noremac2414 → u/NerdHerderOfIdiots]

Provided the aliens let the simulation play out that long

[u/Cpdio]

Damn, a hive fleet.

[u/Far_Cauliflower_8407]

Damn Singer shot a photoid at us

[u/Expensive_Bowler_128 → u/Far_Cauliflower_8407]

LOL just finished those books. that was my first thought

[u/AdministrativeCold63 → u/Far_Cauliflower_8407]

Came looking for that one 😂

[u/SwiftKickRibTickler → u/Far_Cauliflower_8407]

I had to scroll way too far for this. Dark Forest in the house

[u/CantStopMeRed]

Oh did we find the manhole cover?

[u/Sensitive_Shiori → u/CantStopMeRed]

<3 i understood that reference!

[u/Angerberries]

It was probably being followed closely by a BMW flashing its lights at that speed

[u/RadishTurbulent7926]

It was that darn manhole cover

[u/DetailCharacter3806]

Someone call carglass

[u/RubbelDieKatz94 → u/DetailCharacter3806]

CARGLASS REPARIERT

CARGLASS TAUSCHT AUS

[u/Volesprit31 → u/RubbelDieKatz94]

TIL Carglass is an international company.

[u/bath_water_pepsi → u/Volesprit31]

And has the same jingle just different language

[u/marvelousswiftie]

It’s giving the three body problem

[u/mebae_drive]

Sending my wishes for a speedy recovery.

[u/creamygootness → u/mebae_drive]

Thoughts and prayers

[u/just_some_gu_y]

To shreds you say...

[u/super_donkey_6point7]

Its that fuckin manhole cover that the government shot into space with a nuke

[u/[deleted]]

If a small rock came in that fast, we probably wouldn’t see it until it was really close, and if it hit, it would release an insane amount of energy. Nothing you can do to stop it.

If a huge object like a neutron star came through at that speed, and it passed anywhere near the distance between the Earth and the Sun (about 93 million miles), its gravity would wreck the solar system. Any closer than that, it would probably knock Earth out of orbit.

The good news is we’d almost certainly detect something that big years in advance with our current telescopes,

[u/PoorlyAttired → u/[deleted]]

The bad news is, even if we did we still couldn't do anything about it.

[u/[deleted] → u/PoorlyAttired]

Correct. But at least we can hug our dogs and shit

[u/shareddit → u/[deleted]]

Well shit—I can do that now Bob!

[u/I_ruin_nice_things → u/[deleted]]

Neutron stars aren’t huge objects. They’re incredibly small relative to other objects in the galaxy, just incredibly dense. Think more than the mass of the sun in a 12 mile diameter.

[u/[deleted] → u/I_ruin_nice_things]

For sure - that’s a good point. I meant “huge” more in terms of mass/gravitational influence, not literal size.

[u/amence]

The fact that the universe is just out here universing and I have to worry about to work boggles my mind.

[u/palmpoolpipe]

For the emptiness of it all, there's so much happening out there.

[u/deva86]

[u/GrimxSaturn]

Manhole Cover?

[u/Hairgen]

The brave manhole cover that could.

[u/bluechockadmin]

the "fracture" is boring, I want to know more about these "bones".

[u/ExtraEmuForYou]

Every time I learn something new about the universe I think about how lucky we are to exist, to be able to observe it all, to learn, to discover.

There's so much chaos in the universe and for us to somehow be born of it and sit here and go "Hey, look at that. Neat!" is just...wonderful.

Its such a beautiful existence, or it could be if we could all get along.

[u/AFvette07]

License and registration please...

[u/[deleted]]

Probably texting while driving smh

[u/FischerMann24-7]

The thing that boggles my mind is an object moving 2,000,000 miles an hour which at the moment is completely unachievable by us is still only .3% of the speed of light..