20 of the strangest objects you can meet in space

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A huge dumpling, a painting by Van Gogh, Martian parasites and other interesting things that fell into the lens of NASA.

1. Death Star

All jokes aside, a real Death Star revolves in Saturn's orbit. Mimas, a small moon of Saturn, looks exactly like Darth Vader's most destructive weapon. Unless its surface is not smooth, but covered with craters. Also, Mimas is much larger than the Imperial battle station.

The largest crater is Herschel and gives the satellite its characteristic appearance. Its diameter is 135 km, and this is almost a third of the diameter of Mimas itself. This image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2017, before plunging into Saturn's atmosphere.

2. Witch's head

What do you see when you look at this image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in mid-2015? Looks like the evil profile of an old witch woman with a protruding sharp chin and nose, an open mouth, a sunken eye and a wrinkled high forehead. In fact, this is why NASA named the Witch's Head nebula.

3. Fossilized fish on Mars

In 2016, the Curiosity rover sent an unusual photograph to Earth. Among the rocky debris of the Martian rock, a petrified fish with a forked tail was found. And if we take into account that earlier, according to scientists, there was a real water ocean in the northern hemisphere of Mars …

True, NASA hastened to disappoint the adherents of the theory of extraterrestrial paleolife. On closer inspection, the "fish" turned out to be an ordinary stone. In general, "all the best and thanks for the fish."

4. Halloween lamp

Looks ominous, right? This is our Sun, photographed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in October 2014. Reminiscent of Jack's Halloween lamp, well, the one made from pumpkin.

The active regions of the star's crown were randomly composed of two evil eyes, a nose and a wide mouth stretched out in a grin. The largest Halloween pumpkin in our solar system.

5. Face of Jupiter

Flying around Jupiter in 2017, the Juno space probe captured this photo of the gas giant. On it, with due imagination, you can see the "face" of Jupiter with two bulging eyes and a small, perplexedly open mouth. To paraphrase Nietzsche, while Juno is looking at Jupiter, Jupiter is also looking at Juno. "Eyes" and "mouth" are huge whirlwinds, though not as monstrous as the Great Red Spot, but also solid.

6. Space Cyclops

If what you just saw can be called the face of Jupiter … then the gas giant has eyes on the back of its head. At least one. This image shows the shadow of Ganymede, the giant's largest moon, falling over the Great Red Spot - a massive hurricane in Jupiter's atmosphere. Taken together, it resembles a huge cyclops eye looking into space.

7. Spoon on Mars

Another shot from Curiosity, indicating that once there was life on Mars and even there was a developed civilization! Okay, it's actually just a stone, slightly resembling a regular tablespoon. The rover took this photo in 2016.

8. Space potato

Take a look at this thing. It looks like a potato floating in the dark, doesn't it? However, you cannot put it in a saucepan. This is Prometheus - the moon of Saturn. This small celestial body (only 148 km long) has an elongated shape and a surface covered with craters, which gives Prometheus a resemblance to the famous root vegetable. The picture was taken by the Cassini probe in 2015.

9. Spherical horse in vacuum

A cosmic nebula of enormous size, located at a distance of 1,500 light years from us in the constellation Orion, is called the Horsehead. And it really resembles the head of a horse. Well, or a Komodo monitor lizard - it all depends on your imagination. Photo taken by NASA Hawaiian Observatory in 2015.

10. Dumpling in orbit of Saturn

A real dumpling revolving around the gas giant. This is Pan, the moon of Saturn, photographed by the spacecraft Cassini in 2017. The object owes its shape to the rings of Saturn: the dust from which they are composed settles on its sides and creates a kind of ridges. Alas, the giant dumpling is inedible.

11. Hand of the Lord

The universe extends its hand to welcome humanity. Or warning worthless people who dared to look into its depths. The picture was taken by the Chandra Space Telescope in 2009. This hand is a monstrous stream of energy thrown out by a rotating neutron star.

12. Eye in space

Saturn loves to collect all sorts of interesting things in its orbit. Dumpling, potato, now here's the eye. This is Tethys, a moon of Saturn with a huge crater, thanks to which it resembles an eyeball.

This crater is called Odysseus, and in its center is Mount Kerkyra. NASA obtained this photograph from the Cassini probe in early 2017.

13. Orange peel and snail

What is this in front of you? Probably a black and white image of an orange peel under a magnifying glass? No, this is a huge ice plain on the surface of Pluto. A dark object resembling a snail with a shell and a pair of small horns is slowly creeping along it. Scientists speculate that it is a drifting iceberg floating in frozen nitrogen. The photo was sent by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in 2016.

14. Han Solo in carbonite

Mercury has long been an extremely little-explored planet, but in 2011, the ubiquitous NASA reached it with its Messenger probe. Imagine the surprise of scientists when they found a human figure on the surface of this hot planet, fused into a stone. It's Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Although, most likely, this is just a stream of solidified lava in the Karolis Basin.

15. Tick from Venus

Venus is truly a hellish place. The atmosphere here is incredibly dense, creating a pressure 92 times that of Earth. It is terribly hot - an average of 462 degrees Celsius. There is carbon dioxide instead of air and a cloud of sulfuric acid.

But the worst thing is that despite all these minor difficulties, a huge tick lives on Venus. Although, to be honest, it's actually just a large volcano that was photographed from orbit by the Magellan space probe in 1989.

16. Mercury Mickey Mouse

Disney made it to Mercury. And he engraved on its surface a portrait of his most recognizable cartoon character. At least it looks similar. The best advertising you can think of. Jokes aside, these are just a few craters photographed by the NASA Messenger probe in 2012.

17. Cosmic Brains

In Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, the evil arachnids were commanded by a huge spider-brain. And it seems that it exists in reality. Its diameter is 0.6 km. Just look at these convolutions and imagine what this cosmic mind can think about. The enslavement of humanity, of course!

However, it is too early to panic. Upon closer inspection, the huge brain turned out to be a crater on the surface of Mars, filled with ice and sand, which fold into a winding pattern. The photo was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor probe in 2004.

18. Heart of Pluto

The New Horizons probe took this close-up photo of Pluto in 2015. Look closely and you will see that most of the planet is occupied by … the heart.

True, Pluto's heart is cold. It is a huge ice plain called the Tombaugh Region, surrounded by two mountain ranges and covered with crystalline nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ice.

19. Martian parasites

NASA has been trying to hide this fact for a long time, but now that this snapshot has leaked to the Web, it is pointless to deny the truth. Mars is inhabited by huge black leeches, which will certainly create a great threat to colonists in the future …

Okay, I'm just trying to joke. In fact, these are huge sand dunes that cover the crater Proctor in the southern highlands of Mars. No leeches, just dark sand. This photo was taken by the HiRISE camera from the Martian Reconnaissance Satellite in 2007.

20. Canvas by Van Gogh

What kind of insane artist created this breathtaking painting? Maybe Van Gogh decided to write another version of his famous Starry Night? No. This is a photograph of Jupiter's atmosphere taken by the Juno probe in 2017.

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, is a gas giant and has no solid surface. And what you see are clouds and vortices of hydrogen and helium, constantly swirling in its atmosphere.