W26 Super Giant :

The W26 Red Super giant of the Westerlund 1, of the Milky Way is about 1,500 times wider than our Sun.
The Westerlund 1 is probably the largest collection of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The W26 Red Super giant is about 16,000 light-years away from Earth.
The second coolest thing about W26 is that it's the only red super giant which is surrounded by an ionised nebula. The ionised hydrogen gas present around W26 glows in green causing it to be special.

The W26 red super giant is at the end of it's life and would probably turn into a supernova soon.
Stars with such his masses tend to live a short and quick life.

Coldest Place in the Universe :

Ever wondered what the coldest place in the Universe would be?

The answer is the Boomerang Nebula.

The Boomerang Nebula is located about 5,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.The temperature in Boomerang Nebula is estimated to be at around -272.15 C or -457F making it the natural coolest place in the Universe.Boomerang reaches -272C when the lowest limit of temperature is -273C. The Boomerang Nebula is commonly known as a Bow Tie Nebula and is catalogued as PGC 3074547. It is a
It was observed first in 1980 by Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott and in 1998, it was photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Apart from the CMB cold spot, the Boomerang Nebula is the only object with temperature lower than the background radiation.

Image of Boomerang Nebula by Hubble. 

Quarks :

Quarks are elementary sub-atomic particles and a fundamental constituent of matter.
Quarks combine to form protons, neutrons and mesons.Particles formed by the combination of Quarks are hadrons.
Hadrons are of two types :
1)Baryons.
2)Mesons.
Particles consisting of 3 quarks come under Baryons.Protons and Neutrons come under the baryon family.
Particles consisting of a quark and an anti-quark come under the Meson family.
Assumptions on the existence of other hadrons like tetraquarks (Exotic mesons) and Pentaquarks(Enotic baryons) have been made but their hardly exists any evidence to support the fact.
Quarks are divided into six types which are known as the six flavours : up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top.
Up Quark and Down Quark are the most stable of all the Quarks and are also the most commonly found quarks. They also hold the lowest masses of all the quarks.

If a particles exists, it's anti-particle is sure to be found.  Every quark has a corresponding anti-particles known as the antiquark. Quarks and Antiquarks differ only in few properties. They posses same magnitude but have the opposite signs.

The Quark Model was proposed by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig in 1964.

Of all the quarks, top quark was the last to be discovered.

A proton, a part of the Baryon family has 3 quarks. Two up quarks and one down quark and a Neutron posses two down quarks and one up quark. 

Types of Quarks. 

Neutron

Proton

Chandrasekhar Limit :

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Wilhelm Anderson

Chandrasekhar Limit was proposed by Wilhelm Anderson and E.C. Stoner who named it after Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the renowed Indian-American Astrophysicist who made modifications on the calculations in 1930. Chandrasekhar Limit is actually the maximum mass of a stable white-dwarf star. The currently accepted value of the limit is about 1.44 solar masses or 2.864 x 10³⁰ kg.
 Stars exceeding the limit would eventually collapse under their own weight and become neutron stars or black holes.Stars below the limit would be prevented from collapsing by the degeneracy pressure exerted by the electrons. 

Edmund Clifton Stoner 

Units of distance in space :

Distance in space is not measured the same way as distance is measured on Earth. Using distances like meters or kilo meters in outer space is like using a scale to radius of the Earth. Distances in space are seriously high.

Light Year :

The most prominent and common unit to measure distance in space is the light-year.
A light-year is the distance travelled by a light ray in one year in vacuum.
Light travels at an amazing speed of about 300,000 kilometres per second.

So, in an year, light travels the distance of 9.4605284 × 10¹⁵ meters.

The second nearest star to Earth (Proxima Centauri) is at a distance of 4.3 light-years.
Andromeda, our nearest galaxy is at a distance of 2.3 million light-years from us.

Astronomical Unit (A.U.) :
An astronomical unit (A.U.) is one of the smallest unit of cosmic-measurements. An Astronomical Unit in other words is the distance between the Earth and the Sun that is, about 93 million miles.
A.U. are usually used to measure distances just within our solar system.Mercury is 1/3rd of an A.U. from the Sun and Pluto is about 40 A.U. from the Sun. 

Parsecs : 
To measure distances longer than a light year, astronomers use the Parsec unit (pc).
One parsec is equivalent to 3.26 light-years. A parsec stands for "Parallax of one arc second".
A parsec is 3.08567758 × 10¹⁶ meters.

Kilo parsec : 

A kilo parsec or a kpc is one-thousand parsecs. A kiloparsec is 3.08567758 × 10¹⁹ meters.
Megaparsec : 

A megaparsec or mpc is one million parsecs. 3.08567758 × 10²² meters.

Worm Hole :

A wormhole or an Einstein-Rosen bridge is a bridge connecting two seperate points in space and time. In other words, an Einstein-Rosen bridge or a wormhole is a shortcut through space-time.

Bending of space to reach your destination in a very short period of time is the concept of a wormhole.
A wormhole is a tunnel which joins two separate points in space time.
Wormholes, if present would collapse too quickly i.e., before the traveller reach his destination.And, if the traveller travelling through a wormhole is stuck in it and it collapses with him in, then it would cause his body to disintegrate.
High amount of negative energy can be used to stabilise a wormhole so that it can be used for travelling.
There's a possible chance to use a wormhole to travel to distant parts of the Universe which are millions of light years away. If we could get our hands on a wormhole, we could use it to travel to planets in other solar systems in search for places to live or for minerals.
In my previous post, I've told you guys about parallel Universes. A wormhole is said to be a bridge not just to two different points in our Universe but also in the parallel Universes.
Yep. With a wormhole, you can not only travel to the end of our universe but also to the parallel universes. 

Mesons :

Mesons are unstable sub-atomic particles. They were discovered by Hideki Yukawa.
A meson consists of a quark and an anti-quark which are binded by strong interactive forces.
The size of a meson is about 1 femtometer. A meson is a part of hadron family (Made up of Quarks). The pauli's exclusion principle does not apply to the mesons as they are bosons.
Mesons participate in weak and strong attractions aswellas in electro-magnetic attractions.

Now, if we've got matter, we should have anti-matter.
That's where anti-meson comes into play.
A mesons got a corresponding antimeson where quarks are replaced by their anti-quarks and anti-quarks are replaced by their quarks.
A negative pi-meson or a pion is made up of an antiqark and one down quark but a the positive pi-meson is made up of one up quark and one down antiquark.Smaller mesons are more stable when compared to the bigger sized mesons. A meson is a binding particle. It binds Protons and Neutrons and keeps them in place. 

A meson binding proton and neutron 

Diamond Rain :

Yep, diamond rain.
Diamonds like water are rained in a few planets of our Solar System.
Scientists assume that diamonds are rained in Neptune and Uranus.
The atmosphere of Neptune and Uranus is of extremely high pressure and also it contains methane which is a hydro-carbon.
The atmosphere's of those planets have a temperature of about 12,000 Fahrenheit and a pressure of about 6 million times the pressure on Earth. Basically, that means all the temperature and pressure present on those planets turns Methane into diamonds.
Uranus and Neptune are said to have diamonds covering miles and miles of the surface.

Great Red Spot of Jupiter

The Great Red Spot on planet Jupiter is a gigantic storm which is also known as the eye of Jupiter.
So gigantic that it could actually fit about 3 planet Earths.
The Great Red Spot is a anti-cyclonic storm (High-Pressured Storm). Scientists say that the Great Red Spot could be over 400 years old. And, the Great Red Spot is in the same latitude since earliest observations. It rotates in anti-clockwise direction(Counter-Clockwise direction).
The colour of the storm changes from red to salmon and sometimes to light-pink because of the presence of sulphur and phosphorus with ammonia crystals and it is not connected to the surface of Jupiter.And, the Great Red Spot of Jupiter is possibly shrinking. It has lost about 15% of it's size between 1996 and 2006.Winds gush into the storm at the speed of about 420 kph.

Parallel Universes

A Multiverse is a hypothetical set of infinite possible Universes.
The so called universes existing in a multiverse are known as parallel Universes.
Yep.
A Universe existing beside a Universe.
These so called parallel Universes are bound by the same laws of Physics that our Universe is bounded by.

Like the picture above, there is a possible chance that our Universe is surrounded by many other Universe.
And then comes the theory of Daughter Universes.

So, What is a daughter Universe?
Let's see.
Daughter Universes is where all the possibilities occur.
For example, you're to choose between my blog and another blog.
That's where daughter universes come in.
In one of the Daughter Universe, you choose my blog and in the other Daughter Universe, you choose the other blog.
This circle just goes on and on.
Infinite Daughter Universes from a Universe.
So, now...
Let me put it in a simpler way.
In one of the daughter Universe, you decide to write the information present on my blog.
You've got a black pen and a red pen.
Let's say the Universe splits.
And, in one Daughter Universe's, you use the black pen to write the information down and in the next daughter Universe, you use the red pen.

This way, there are about infinite possibilities.
A Uni-ception like the movie Inception.

Blood found in a 46 million year old mosquito :

It is said that blood and other organic molecules can survive for about 50 million years.
Scientists have found the fossils of a mosquito that died nearly 46 million years ago.
With the blood found in the mosquito, scientists can re-engineer the DNA of the animal that existed at during that age.

Just like the movie, Jurassic Park.
But, unfortunately, extracting blood from a fossil of a mosquito isn't actually possible with our present-day technology.
We just have to wait and watch for the secrets this is going to unravel!

Pi ( π )

π is a Greek letter and a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to it's
diameter. π an irrational number cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers.22/7 is the closest to the exact value of π.Scientists have estimated the value of π over 10 trillion digits (10¹³).
Attempts to memorize the value of π with great precision paved way to records of over 67,000 digits!

Value of pi for upto 10,000 digits : 
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510 58209 74944 59230 78164 06286 20899 86280 34825 34211 70679 82148 08651 32823 06647 09384 46095 50582 23172 53594 08128 48111 74502 84102 70193 85211 05559 64462 29489 54930 38196 44288 10975 66593 34461 28475 64823 37867 83165 27120 19091 45648 56692 34603 48610 45432 66482 13393 60726 02491 41273 72458 70066 06315 58817 48815 20920 96282 92540 91715 36436 78925 90360 01133 05305 48820 46652 13841 46951 94151 16094 33057 27036 57595 91953 09218 61173 81932 61179 31051 18548 07446 23799 62749 56735 18857 52724 89122 79381 83011 94912 98336 73362 44065 66430 86021 39494 63952 24737 19070 21798 60943 70277 05392 17176 29317 67523 84674 81846 76694 05132 00056 81271 45263 56082 77857 71342 75778 96091 73637 17872 14684 40901 22495 34301 46549 58537 10507 92279 68925 89235 42019 95611 21290 21960 86403 44181 59813 62977 47713 09960 51870 72113 49999 99837 29780 49951 05973 17328 16096 31859 50244 59455 34690 83026 42522 30825 33446 85035 26193 11881 71010 00313 78387 52886 58753 32083 81420 61717 76691 47303 59825 34904 28755 46873 11595 62863 88235 37875 93751 95778 18577 80532 17122 68066 13001 92787 66111 95909 21642 01989 38095 25720 10654 85863 27886 59361 53381 82796 82303 01952 03530 18529 68995 77362 25994 13891 24972 17752 83479 13151 55748 57242 45415 06959 50829 53311 68617 27855 88907 50983 81754 63746 49393 19255 06040 09277 01671 13900 98488 24012 85836 16035 63707 66010 47101 81942 95559 61989 46767 83744 94482 55379 77472 68471 04047 53464 62080 46684 25906 94912 93313 67702 89891 52104 75216 20569 66024 05803 81501 93511 25338 24300 35587 64024 74964 73263 91419 92726 04269 92279 67823 54781 63600 93417 21641 21992 45863 15030 28618 29745 55706 74983 85054 94588 58692 69956 90927 21079 75093 02955 32116 53449 87202 75596 02364 80665 49911 98818 34797 75356 63698 07426 54252 78625 51818 41757 46728 90977 77279 38000 81647 06001 61452 49192 17321 72147 72350 14144 19735 68548 16136 11573 52552 13347 57418 49468 43852 33239 07394 14333 45477 62416 86251 89835 69485 56209 92192 22184 27255 02542 56887 67179 04946 01653 46680 49886 27232 79178 60857 84383 82796 79766 81454 10095 38837 86360 95068 00642 25125 20511 73929 84896 08412 84886 26945 60424 19652 85022 21066 11863 06744 27862 20391 94945 04712 37137 86960 95636 43719 17287 46776 46575 73962 41389 08658 32645 99581 33904 78027 59009 94657 64078 95126 94683 98352 59570 98258 22620 52248 94077 26719 47826 84826 01476 99090 26401 36394 43745 53050 68203 49625 24517 49399 65143 14298 09190 65925 09372 21696 46151 57098 58387 41059 78859 59772 97549 89301 61753 92846 81382 68683 86894 27741 55991 85592 52459 53959 43104 99725 24680 84598 72736 44695 84865 38367 36222 62609 91246 08051 24388 43904 51244 13654 97627 80797 71569 14359 97700 12961 60894 41694 86855 58484 06353 42207 22258 28488 64815 84560 28506 01684 27394 52267 46767 88952 52138 52254 99546 66727 82398 64565 96116 35488 62305 77456 49803 55936 34568 17432 41125 15076 06947 94510 96596 09402 52288 79710 89314 56691 36867 22874 89405 60101 50330 86179 28680 92087 47609 17824 93858 90097 14909 67598 52613 65549 78189 31297 84821 68299 89487 22658 80485 75640 14270 47755 51323 79641 45152 37462 34364 54285 84447 95265 86782 10511 41354 73573 95231 13427 16610 21359 69536 23144 29524 84937 18711 01457 65403 59027 99344 03742 00731 05785 39062 19838 74478 08478 48968 33214 45713 86875 19435 06430 21845 31910 48481 00537 06146 80674 91927 81911 97939 95206 14196 63428 75444 06437 45123 71819 21799 98391 01591 95618 14675 14269 12397 48940 90718 64942 31961 56794 52080 95146 55022 52316 03881 93014 20937 62137 85595 66389 37787 08303 90697 92077 34672 21825 62599 66150 14215 03068 03844 77345 49202 60541 46659 25201 49744 28507 32518 66600 21324 34088 19071 04863 31734 64965 14539 05796 26856 10055 08106 65879 69981 63574 73638 40525 71459 10289 70641 40110 97120 62804 39039 75951 56771 57700 42033 78699 36007 23055 87631 76359 42187 31251 47120 53292 81918 26186 12586 73215 79198 41484 88291 64470 60957 52706 95722 09175 67116 72291 09816 90915 28017 35067 12748 58322 28718 35209 35396 57251 21083 57915 13698 82091 44421 00675 10334 67110 31412 67111 36990 86585 16398 31501 97016 51511 68517 14376 57618 35155 65088 49099 89859 98238 73455 28331 63550 76479 18535 89322 61854 89632 13293 30898 57064 20467 52590 70915 48141 65498 59461 63718 02709 81994 30992 44889 57571 28289 05923 23326 09729 97120 84433 57326 54893 82391 19325 97463 66730 58360 41428 13883 03203 82490 37589 85243 74417 02913 27656 18093 77344 40307 07469 21120 19130 20330 38019 76211 01100 44929 32151 60842 44485 96376 69838 95228 68478 31235 52658 21314 49576 85726 24334 41893 03968 64262 43410 77322 69780 28073 18915 44110 10446 82325 27162 01052 65227 21116 60396 66557 30925 47110 55785 37634 66820 65310 98965 26918 62056 47693 12570 58635 66201 85581 00729 36065 98764 86117 91045 33488 50346 11365 76867 53249 44166 80396 26579 78771 85560 84552 96541 26654 08530 61434 44318 58676 97514 56614 06800 70023 78776 59134 40171 27494 70420 56223 05389 94561 31407 11270 00407 85473 32699 39081 45466 46458 80797 27082 66830 63432 85878 56983 05235 80893 30657 57406 79545 71637 75254 20211 49557 61581 40025 01262 28594 13021 64715 50979 25923 09907 96547 37612 55176 56751 35751 78296 66454 77917 45011 29961 48903 04639 94713 29621 07340 43751 89573 59614 58901 93897 13111 79042 97828 56475 03203 19869 15140 28708 08599 04801 09412 14722 13179 47647 77262 24142 54854 54033 21571 85306 14228 81375 85043 06332 17518 29798 66223 71721 59160 77166 92547 48738 98665 49494 50114 65406 28433 66393 79003 97692 65672 14638 53067 36096 57120 91807 63832 71664 16274 88880 07869 25602 90228 47210 40317 21186 08204 19000 42296 61711 96377 92133 75751 14959 50156 60496 31862 94726 54736 42523 08177 03675 15906 73502 35072 83540 56704 03867 43513 62222 47715 89150 49530 98444 89333 09634 08780 76932 59939 78054 19341 44737 74418 42631 29860 80998 88687 41326 04721 56951 62396 58645 73021 63159 81931 95167 35381 29741 67729 47867 24229 24654 36680 09806 76928 23828 06899 64004 82435 40370 14163 14965 89794 09243 23789 69070 69779 42236 25082 21688 95738 37986 23001 59377 64716 51228 93578 60158 81617 55782 97352 33446 04281 51262 72037 34314 65319 77774 16031 99066 55418 76397 92933 44195 21541 34189 94854 44734 56738 31624 99341 91318 14809 27777 10386 38773 43177 20754 56545 32207 77092 12019 05166 09628 04909 26360 19759 88281 61332 31666 36528 61932 66863 36062 73567 63035 44776 28035 04507 77235 54710 58595 48702 79081 43562 40145 17180 62464 36267 94561 27531 81340 78330 33625 42327 83944 97538 24372 05835 31147 71199 26063 81334 67768 79695 97030 98339 13077 10987 04085 91337 46414 42822 77263 46594 70474 58784 77872 01927 71528 07317 67907 70715 72134 44730 60570 07334 92436 93113 83504 93163 12840 42512 19256 51798 06941 13528 01314 70130 47816 43788 51852 90928 54520 11658 39341 96562 13491 43415 95625 86586 55705 52690 49652 09858 03385 07224 26482 93972 85847 83163 05777 75606 88876 44624 82468 57926 03953 52773 48030 48029 00587 60758 25104 74709 16439 61362 67604 49256 27420 42083 20856 61190 62545 43372 13153 59584 50687 72460 29016 18766 79524 06163 42522 57719 54291 62991 93064 55377 99140 37340 43287 52628 88963 99587 94757 29174 64263 57455 25407 90914 51357 11136 94109 11939 32519 10760 20825 20261 87985 31887 70584 29725 91677 81314 96990 09019 21169 71737 27847 68472 68608 49003 37702 42429 16513 00500 51683 23364 35038 95170 29893 92233 45172 20138 12806 96501 17844 08745 19601 21228 59937 16231 30171 14448 46409 03890 64495 44400 61986 90754 85160 26327 50529 83491 87407 86680 88183 38510 22833 45085 04860 82503 93021 33219 71551 84306 35455 00766 82829 49304 13776 55279 39751 75461 39539 84683 39363 83047 46119 96653 85815 38420 56853 38621 86725 23340 28308 71123 28278 92125 07712 62946 32295 63989 89893 58211 67456 27010 21835 64622 01349 67151 88190 97303 81198 00497 34072 39610 36854 06643 19395 09790 19069 96395 52453 00545 05806 85501 95673 02292 19139 33918 56803 44903 98205 95510 02263 53536 19204 19947 45538 59381 02343 95544 95977 83779 02374 21617 27111 72364 34354 39478 22181 85286 24085 14006 66044 33258 88569 86705 43154 70696 57474 58550 33232 33421 07301 54594 05165 53790 68662 73337 99585 11562 57843 22988 27372 31989 87571 41595 78111 96358 33005 94087 30681 21602 87649 62867 44604 77464 91599 50549 73742 56269 01049 03778 19868 35938 14657 41268 04925 64879 85561 45372 34786 73303 90468 83834 36346 55379 49864 19270 56387 29317 48723 32083 76011 23029 91136 79386 27089 43879 93620 16295 15413 37142 48928 30722 01269 01475 46684 76535 76164 77379 46752 00490 75715 55278 19653 62132 39264 06160 13635 81559 07422 02020 31872 77605 27721 90055 61484 25551 87925 30343 51398 44253 22341 57623 36106 42506 39049 75008 65627 10953 59194 65897 51413 10348 22769 30624 74353 63256 91607 81547 81811 52843 66795 70611 08615 33150 44521 27473 92454 49454 23682 88606 13408 41486 37767 00961 20715 12491 40430 27253 86076 48236 34143 34623 51897 57664 52164 13767 96903 14950 19108 57598 44239 19862 91642 19399 49072 36234 64684 41173 94032 65918 40443 78051 33389 45257 42399 50829 65912 28508 55582 15725 03107 12570 12668 30240 29295 25220 11872 67675 62204 15420 51618 41634 84756 51699 98116 14101 00299 60783 86909 29160 30288 40026 91041 40792 88621 50784 24516 70908 70006 99282 12066 04183 71806 53556 72525 32567 53286 12910 42487 76182 58297 65157 95984 70356 22262 93486 00341 58722 98053 49896 50226 29174 87882 02734 20922 22453 39856 26476 69149 05562 84250 39127 57710 28402 79980 66365 82548 89264 88025 45661 01729 67026 64076 55904 29099 45681 50652 65305 37182 94127 03369 31378 51786 09040 70866 71149 65583 43434 76933 85781 71138 64558 73678 12301 45876 87126 60348 91390 95620 09939 36103 10291 61615 28813 84379 09904 23174 73363 94804 57593 14931 40529 76347 57481 19356 70911 01377 51721 00803 15590 24853 09066 92037 67192 20332 29094 33467 68514 22144 77379 39375 17034 43661 99104 03375 11173 54719 18550 46449 02636 55128 16228 82446 25759 16333 03910 72253 83742 18214 08835 08657 39177 15096 82887 47826 56995 99574 49066 17583 44137 52239 70968 34080 05355 98491 75417 38188 39994 46974 86762 65516 58276 58483 58845 31427 75687 90029 09517 02835 29716 34456 21296 40435 23117 60066 51012 41200 65975 58512 76178 58382 92041 97484 42360 80071 93045 76189 32349 22927 96501 98751 87212 72675 07981 25547 09589 04556 35792 12210 33346 69749 92356 30254 94780 24901 14195 21238 28153 09114 07907 38602 51522 74299 58180 72471 62591 66854 51333 12394 80494 70791 19153 26734 30282 44186 04142 63639 54800 04480 02670 49624 82017 92896 47669 75831 83271 31425 17029 69234 88962 76684 40323 26092 75249 60357 99646 92565 04936 81836 09003 23809 29345 95889 70695 36534 94060 34021 66544 37558 90045 63288 22505 45255 64056 44824 65151 87547 11962 18443 96582 53375 43885 69094 11303 15095 26179 37800 29741 20766 51479 39425 90298 96959 46995 56576 12186 56196 73378 62362 56125 21632 08628 69222 10327 48892 18654 36480 22967 80705 76561 51446 32046 92790 68212 07388 37781 42335 62823 60896 32080 68222 46801 22482 61177 18589 63814 09183 90367 36722 20888 32151 37556 00372 79839 40041 52970 02878 30766 70944 47456 01345 56417 25437 09069 79396 12257 14298 94671 54357 84687 88614 44581 23145 93571 98492 25284 71605 04922 12424 70141 21478 05734 55105 00801 90869 96033 02763 47870 81081 75450 11930 71412 23390 86639 38339 52942 57869 05076 43100 63835 19834 38934 15961 31854 34754 64955 69781 03829 30971 64651 43840 70070 73604 11237 35998 43452 25161 05070 27056 23526 60127 64848 30840 76118 30130 52793 20542 74628 65403 60367 45328 65105 70658 74882 25698 15793 67897 66974 22057 50596 83440 86973 50201 41020 67235 85020 07245 22563 26513 41055 92401 90274 21624 84391 40359 98953 53945 90944 07046 91209 14093 87001 26456 00162 37428 80210 92764 57931 06579 22955 24988 72758 46101 26483 69998 92256 95968 81592 05600 10165 52563 7567 ...

*This value extends upto 10 trillion digits. 

What fuels the sun?

Have you people ever wondered what was the fuel in Sun?
No?
Well, think about it now.


So, what's the answer?
Fusion Reaction.

Stars don't literally burn. So, there's no Oxygen required for combustion.
Hydrogen gas fuses to form helium.Some of the mass is lost which is converted into Energy.
The energy formed when they fuse serves as the fuel for stars.
About 70% of the sun is Hydrogen gas.
Rest is hydrogen converted into helium.
So, the current composition of our Sun is 70% Hydrogen and 30% Helium.

What happens if all of the Hydrogen gas is converted into Helium?
Well, it's obvious, isn't it?
The Sun will run out of fuel.Without fusion reactions, the core of Sun will inflate and then collapse due it's own gravity.The collapse will create enormous amounts of heat.
The Hydrogen present in the outer layers of Sun will react with the supply of the enormous heat energy and fusion starts.
These fusions will thus inflate the Sun causing it to blow up into a Red Giant.

The current diameter of our sun is 0.01 Astronomical Units.
The diameter of the Sun at the Red Giant stage will be about 2 Astronomical Units.
Yep.
Our Sun's size would increase 200 times.

Near Earth Objects (NEO)

A Near Earth Object is an object in the solar system whose orbit comes extremely close to Earth.
Near Earth Objects are of many types.
1)Near Earth Asteroids.
2)Near Earth Comets.
3)Near Earth Meteoroids.
4)A number of solar-orbiting spacecrafts.

Near Earth Asteroids or the NEA have orbits ranging from 0.983 to 1.3 AU away from the Sun.
When an NEA is detected, it is submiteted to the Minor Planet Center (Located at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) for cataloging. 
There is always a chance for Near Earth Asteroids to collide with Earth. NASA has a congressional mandate to catalogue all NEO's that are atleast 1 km wide as the impact of such an object would be catastrophic.As of Aug 2012, there have been 848 NEA's larger than 1 km and of  which 154 are potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA's). 

About 65 million years ago, an asteroid which was about 4-5 miles in diameter collided with Earth.
The collision generated immense heat and energy causing the end of the dinosaurs.
If such a collision happens again, it would generate such immense heat and energy causing a massive change in the climatic conditions.This would lead to a fall in the dominant species of the planet. Humans.
Yes. If an asteroid as big or bigger than that collides with Earth, that would be the end of the human legacy.

And, about a million NEO's are currently in space which can cause catastrophic damage.


These 11 Asteroids came seriously close to earth in the last year : 
1) 2013 RZ53, September 18, 2013
2)(52760) 1998 ML14, August 24, 20133)(277475) 2005 WK4, August 8, 2013
4)2003 DZ15, July 30, 2013.
5)2006 BL8, July 26, 20136)2013 LR6, June 8, 20137)2009 FE, June 4, 2013 8)(285263) 1998 QE2, May 29, 2013
9)(7888) 1993 UC, March 20, 201310)2013 ET, March 9, 2013.
11)2012 DA₁₄, February 15, 2013

Pulsars :

A pulsar is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electro-magnetic radiation. This radiation can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointed towards the earth.
A neutron star is pretty dense and has short-regular rotational periods.A pulsar gets it's name because it emits energy in the form of pulses and is short for "Pulsating star".

When and by who'm was the first pulsar discovered?

The  first pulsar was observed on November 28, 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish.They observed pulses seperated by 1.33 seconds, originated from the same location on the sky.

Quasars :

A Quasar (Also known as a quasi-stellar radio source) is a very energetic and distant active galactic nucleus.
Quasars are super-insanely and extremely luminous!
They're super-amazingly bright. They were first identified as being high-redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light, that were point like similar to stars rather than extended sources similar to galaxies.

A quasar is a compact region in the center of a massive galaxy that surrounds it's central super massive black hole.
It's size is like about 10-10,000 times the size of a Schwarzschild radius of a black hole
A quasar is powered by an accretion disc around the black hole. A quasar generates more energy than entire galaxies.

Scientists have found about 200,000 Quasars.
A quasar would shut down if the black hole near the center of the galaxy in which it resides is done with consuming everything in the host galaxy.

Earth's Magnetic Field :

Earth's geo-magnetic field is the magnetic field that extends from the Earth's inner core to where it meets the solar wind ( A flow or stream of highly-accelerated particles emanating from the Sun).
The range of Earth's magnetic field is about 25 to 65 micro-tesla(µT) which is about 0.25 to 0.65 Gauss.
The Earth's magnetic field is generated by the motion of molten iron alloys in the Earth's outer core (The geodynamo).
The North Magnetic Pole wanders off, but it does too slowly that we can use a simple compass for navigation.

Here comes the interesting part.
Over several thousand years, the Earth's geo-magnetic field reverses.Current North Pole becomes the south pole and our current south pole becomes the North pole.
Yep.
Geo-Magnetic Reversals occur once every several thousand years.


Why is the Magnetic Field so important? 
The magnetic field protects Earth from highly-accelerated charged particles like the electrons or the ions from the Sun.
Without the magnetic field, Earth would have been riddled by these particles and would the core of the earth would de-stabilise. The region over the ionosphere is called the magnetosphere, and extends several tens of thousands of kilometers into space. This region prevents the cosmic rays from entering into Earth.
Without the Magnetic field, the entire ionosphere would be stripped off taking away the Ozone layer too which would cause harmful UV rays to enter.

Declination from 1590-1990.

Solar Flares

A solar flare is a sudden brightening over the Sun's surface which releases immense energy!
An average solar flare is said to release about 6 x 10^25 joules of energy which is about a sixth of the total energy output of the sun each second.
Let's put that in normal words?
Imagine 160,000,000,000 megatons of TNT exploding right next to you.

Yep. That's the energy released in an average solar flare.  A solar flare is followed by a coronal mass ejection or a CME. The solar flare releases immense energy and also ejects clouds of electrons, ions and atoms through the corona of the sun into space which reach Earth in about two days time.

An average solar flare heats the solar-atmosphere by tens of millions of kelvin causing  the electrons, protons and the other heavier ions to accelerate at immense speed (Almost near the speed of light).
The X-rays and UV rays emitted by the solar flares can affect Earth's ionosphere and disrupt the long-range radio communications. 

When were solar flares first observed? 

Solar flares were first observed in the year 1859.

Who was the first people to observe a Solar Flare?

Richard Christopher Carrington and Richard Hodgson were the first people to observe a solar flare.
Richard Hodgson in 1859 observed localised visible brightenings of small areas within a sunspot group.
Stellar flares have also been observed on a variety of other stars.

Occurence of Solar Flares?
The occurence of a Solar Flare may vary from serveral times a day or to less than a week. Small Solar flares occur more frequently.

The most important question of all :

When and how do Solar Flares occur? 

Solar Flares occur when highly accelerated charged particles (Or say electrons) interact with the plasmic medium of the Sun.

Looks like that sums it up, peeps.

Water on celestial bodies across the Solar System.

Does water exist anywhere else in the solar system?
The answer is Yes!
A mighty yes!

About 70% of our planet Earth consists of water. It is said that life was first originated in water.
And, the possibility of finding water on other planets in the solar system would lead to another question.
Is there life else where in the Universe.
The answer is obviously yes. But, let's get back to the topic.

It has been observed that surface water once covered large areas of surface of planets, Venus and Mars.
The planet Mars has huge ridges in the surface indicating that Mars once had huge river systems.
Mars is said to have polar ice-caps where water is found in a solid form.

The next possibility of finding water in our solar system is in a moon of our biggest planet, Jupiter.
Yes.
Europa, the moon of Jupiter is said to have huge deposits of water.
Europa is said to have more water than the water present in the oceans and seas of earth.
Yep.
Amazing, ain't it?

Let's come to the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn.
Neptune is said to have plenty of ice and water vapour.
But, the chances of water to be present in a liquid form given that pressure and temperature is quite less.
Jupiter, with it's massive size is said to comprise of many layers.
It is possible that the conditions on one of those layers may resemble the conditions on our planet and that water could exist there.

Now, the ice-giants.
Yep, Ice giants.
Uranus and Neptune are the ice-giants of our solar system. They're made up of methane, ammonia and water which are frozen.It is said that the middle layers may be actually vast layers of water and ammonia.
Oh and we're not done yet.
What about the comets and asteroids? Ever wondered what they're made up of?
Answer : Ice.
Yep, ice. Ceres, a lone dwarf planet might contain water-ammonia ocean beneath it's icy exterior.
So, we're not just the only ones to have water.

Space Elevator!

TADA!!!
Let me present you with the space elevator!!!

Too cool to believe? Say what, it's gonna work.

Yep.
The space elevator as it's name says is a type of space-transportation system. The main component is a ribbon like cable called the tether anchored to the surface and going up into the space.Cool, huh?
What's a space elevator gonna be used for?
It's obviously gonna be used to transport objects from earth directly into space or orbit without having to worry about the fuel consumption in rockets.
Yep, that's right.
It's gonna have a cable attached to the surface near the equator and the other end would be beyond the geostationary orbit or like above 36,000 km altitude.
Gravity would be stronger at the lower end and the outward centrifugal force which is stronger in the upper end would result in the cable being help up, under tension and be stable over a single point on the Earth.
One deployed, the tether would be ascended repeatedly by mechanical means to orbit, and return to the surface from the orbit.

Who first came up with the idea of a space elevator? 

 It was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.He proposed a free-standing tower from surface of Earth to the height of a geostationary orbit.But the structure of Tsiolkovsky would collapse under the immense pressure as it's weight would be supported from below. Since 1959, most ideas for space elevators focrused on purely tensile structures with a weight of the system to be help from above.
But now, with increase in technology and information about the space, scientists are working on materials for the tether (The cable, like I earlier mentioned). They need strong and light material to build elevator and are now considering the use of carbon nanotubes or boron nitride nanotube based materials as the tensile element to design tether.

Are space elevators possible in celestial bodies across our solar system? 

Let's say we colonise moon and mars.
They've got considerably less gravity.So, we don't have to use carbon nanotubes or boron nitride nanotubes over there.
We just have to work with substances which are capable of holding up the elevator without worrying about the high gravity.

Which substance can be used in the space elevators on bodies like Mars and Moon?

For locations in the solar system with weaker gravity than Earth's require materials with a lesser strength-to-density for the tether. Kevlar could be a possible choice as it is strong and light enough for the conditions in those planets.

What about the money used in the project? 

Economics. Yep, one of the most important concept in all the major projects.
A space elevator would be used as a substitute to modern day rockets. They're said to recude the cost and work-load used in sending rockets to space.
If they're designed to reduce the cost of sending in rockets to outer space, they must be considerably cheap.
Transfering an average rocket to a geostationary orbit  (According to NASA) would be an estimate of about 450 million.
But with the space lift, it's just 220 USD per kg (For a normal launch as per 2,000 conventions) when compared to the whooping 25,000 USD per kg when using a rocket.
So, by all means, this project would be about 6.2 billion (According to the 2004, 55th International Astronomical Congress)

Carbon Nanotubes for tether.