re: Lets learn something about space

When NASA astronaut Story Musgrave was in space, he claims to have seen eel-like tubes with their own propulsion systems. Apparently, he saw these creatures twice. While most shrug it off as space junk, Musgrave stood by his statement.



As part of the Mercury missions, Major Gordon Cooper orbited the earth in his Mercury capsule. During his mission, he claimed to have seen a green orb approaching him before disappearing. Even a tracking station in Muchea, Australia, picked up the signal.


As they orbited the far side of the moon, Apollo 10 heard what they called “outer space type music.” At the time, they were cut off from Houston and alone for a brief period. The astronauts didn’t mention it to mission control, but years later a low-frequency whistling noise came up on their recordings.


One of the strange effects of being in space for a long period of time is apparently growing taller. Due to the zero gravity, the spinal cord isn’t compressed as much, making astronauts grow at least 3% taller.


While we sit comfortably in our galaxy, we may forget that the universe as a whole can be a scary place. For instance, scientists recently discovered a sudden burst of x-ray light 10.7 billion light years away from Earth. They believe it was likely some kind of destructive, cataclysmic event. The energy it produced was a thousand times more powerful than all the stars in our galaxy. They aren’t really sure what it was or what caused it at all.


About 12 billion light years away, a quasar is holding a huge reservoir of water 140 trillion times the mass of water in the Earth’s oceans. While finding water in space isn’t itself unique, this one is particularly remarkable and strange for how much water it has produced.


Astronomers have come upon new evidence that a ninth planet the size of Neptune was once in the planet-forming region of our solar system but was eventually kicked out into the elliptical orbit. It takes 15,000 years for this planet to fully orbit the sun. It’s the planet that got away.