Universe - Blog Posts

So... Here's this I know it looks like a three year old colored it but oh well Also I hate summer school (only cause i have to wake up early)

Sharp Nebula Shot!

IC 405 & 410 Mosaic - Flame and Tadpole Nebulas

Scientists believe they've found evidence of what was once an ocean on Mars. Check out the shoreline on mars!

é assim crianças, que surgem os buracos negros! E também é por isso que ela anda descalça…

Achava que era aquela teoria do Stephen Hawking?

Apresentação oficial dos personagens do blog! Nad, Death, Life e Universe!

Evolui um pouco na mesa digitalizadora! Uhhuuuu! \o/ 

Got these pictures I took of the moon through my telescope if anyone wants to see them

Cosmic Cliffs in Carina © JWST

Look how beautiful this is!

I know I don't usually reblog but this was necessary

M8, Ripples of the Lagoon

What are people anyway? If the world is not what we see, why do we care how others see us? Why do we ignore our own existence as consciousness and consciously let our unconscious shape us to the views and preferences of others?

Humans have practically dominated the planet.

Stars and planets are dying, galaxies are fading.

Why do I still care?

Why do I still feel so small compared to others?

Coward.

No tags or money, this post doesn't matter

Nothing matters.

You are nothing on the cosmic scale, your worries, insecurities, that swallowing everything... You are a damn coward afraid of sinking into your own existence.

And that's okay.

You don't need to feel small over such trivial things as a threat, an expectation or the simple need to survive in this society. Each of us has a universe within us, It would be a complete waste if you continued to oppress and hide yourself. For you are an incredible thing.

"Jupiter was meant to be a star but failed" or jupiter was a very successful planet? stop downgrading my man 🥀🥀

Nature is designed in a smart way so as to not destroy itself right? This means there are certain limitations to what we can do, for example

Assuming we live in a world where time travel is possible:

The Grandfather paradox (or something alike) will be created no matter how careful we are if we were to be able to time travel. But since physics is a well functioning logical model, there must be a system or mechanism to ensure otherwise.

For example, like in Avengers Endgame it’s stated that you can’t change the present or future by changing the past because the past becomes the present you’s future. This means that the grandfather paradox is not possible (basically the entire last season of the umbrella academy 😌).

So it must mean that every time we travel into the past, and change something, a new timeline or new universe with a slightly different detail is created, which must be the reason the series “Loki” had so many time-lines?

I heard Saturn is losing it's rings. She's going through a divorce😭

The Sohmas (Fruits Basket) as Birthstones based on the month corresponding with their cursed member of the Chinese zodiac:

I decided to make this because to me “Fruits Basket” was the “Steven Universe” for me before I even watched the latter show. Tohru is kind of like Steven in a way, healing lost broken things/people with their kindness and loving nature. Tohru even has a dead mother and lives with 3 other people. That’s pretty much it though.

One reason why I’m doing this is because I wanted to make a “Steven Universe” version of this anime since anime is definitely smiled upon in that show. So in my headcanon the show in that universe will be called Fruit Salad (call me out if you can think of a better title). Instead of turning into animals when stressed or hugged by the opposite sex, they will turn into their true form as aliens from another galaxy. So there’s no need to worry them being naked when they change back. That’s pretty much all I got for now considering it’s just a headcanon of an anime within a cartoon show.

 So here’s the list so far.

Hatsuharu – Garnet (Gem Placement: nose, forehead, chest, left hand, or right hand)

Kisa – Amethyst (Gem Placement: stomach or back)

Momiji – Aquamarine (Gem Placement: chest, stomach, or back)

Hatori – Diamond (Gem Placement: one of his eyes, forehead, or back)

Ayame  - Emerald (Gem Placement: chest, neck, tongue, or uvula)

Isuzu – Pearl (Gem Placement: chest or nose)

Hiro – Ruby (Gem Placement: forehead or neck)

Ritsu – Peridot (Gem Placement: stomach or back)

Kureno – Sapphire (Gem Placement: stomach)

Shigure – Opal (Gem Placement: forehead or neck)

Kagura – Topaz (Gem Placement: chest, right hand, or left hand)

Yuki – Turquoise (Gem Placement: forehead)

Kyo – Bloodstone (because of his beads for is bracelet were from bones and some were dipped with blood. Not to mention that it was a stand-in for the March birthstone. This is one of the closest months to February, the month of the Tiger. Tiger being a feline that should be quite fitting for the unofficial year of the cat) (Gem Placement: Nose, chest, right hand, or left hand)

Akito -  Serpentine (SNEOPLE!) (Gem Placement: forehead)

 This are not set in stone (pun intended). This is just a basis for what their gems need to be to fit with their cursed years. If you want to help find a gem that truly fits them and still corresponds with their animal month. Here’s something to help. Just search the stones for their following signs (except for Kyo and Akito. They’re the rebels).

 Hatsuharu – Capricorn

Kisa – Aquarius

Momiji – Pisces

Hatori – Aries

Ayame  - Taurus

Isuzu – Gemini

Hiro – Cancer

Ritsu – Leo

Kureno – Virgo

Shigure – Libra

Kagura – Scorpio

Yuki – Sagittarius

 Just to be clear I’m going by their cursed dates, not birthdates (if I was there would have been 4 rubies and 2 garnets). Be free to help decide where all their gem placements should be. Just keep in my mind that “gem placements = personality influence” is the unspoken canon of the Steven Universe show.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

�/��x�

The midnight sky, Flagstaff AZ - 10/8/2023

Это не так шикарно как в позах, но это не плохо. Считайте альт.версия, где Цекел-Кан смог сбежать от Картесса, прибыв уже в Испанию, но поплатился глазам (знаю, банально) Мысль 1 не дала уснуть "Если б было продолжение, то каким бы он был?" переживала больше за жреца, хотела чтобы он выжил. Вот в моей версии он жив. На этот раз жаждет отомстить проходимцам, вернуться в город с новыми силами и вернуть обычаи

Если мне это идея дальше будет нравится, то буду обновлять

i think i believe in some kind if higher power, its not like, god, or anything like that. recently ive just been noticing that things are happening that align perfectly with my goals and my needs. like, at work, i had to do a job and i needed a certain number of things to do it and i grabbed the perfect amount first try?!?

(tw ed mentioned under cut)

or, like today, i was going to skip lunch but as i was leaving the house my friend asked me if i wanted some of the curry her mum made and its like. okay, maybe the universe wants me to eat today?!?

You're spoiling us, so I'm spoiling you.

'A buon intenditor poche parole', says an Italian saying, dear @thesarcasticknightblr . Not really sure, but I think it could be translate as 'A word is enough to the wise'.

Do You Believe in Fate/Destiny?

I have gone back and forth on this question for over 15 years. I used to think like this: when the good fate happens, yes! When the bad fate happens, no. I find that the words Fate or Destiny are rooted in positivity and materialistic values, and I think many others will currently (or used to!) have the same belief that I once did that the Fates only arrive on the breeze with good news, never the bad or ugly. The more I delved into my practice by pouring time and soul into research, meditation, spirituality and witchcraft, the more I understood that fate or destiny isn’t always the light side of life, it encompasses the dark too. Do I now believe it exists? Wholly.

At this stage into my practice and reading, I have become aware that there are certain soul milestones we want to achieve before we come to Earth, but I don’t think these lessons are linear. They aren’t “supposed” to happen in a certain way at a specific time with the perfect people. They occur when they can, based on the choices that form the paths we take in life. Every choice we make matters. Each one makes an impact in one way or another, which means they can change the course of our futures and therefore the way in which we receive Divine Timing. The lessons will come either way, but the circumstances around it may change to lean more heavily into the positive or even perhaps the negative. We must learn the lesson either way. If we’re clever about it, we will able to check a few teachings off in one fell swoop and make a great leap forwards into greater circumstances than thought possible. A destiny that aligns with our heart and soul.

I don’t believe that fate works to give us what we want, I believe it does so to give us what we need. They are two very different things. For example, we may want a big, beautiful house in a big, beautiful neighbourhood, but what we need may be a small, rickety cabin where our soul feels comforted and warm. We may want lots of money to buy the things we think we “need”, but what we actually need is basic financial security to traverse safely through the human experience. It is wise to look between the lines of wants vs needs and act accordingly. Can we take a step back and ask ourselves what life lesson do we need to learn right now? Is there something we can do to change what our brains want into something our souls crave? Are we able to see so clearly that we can take charge of the smaller lessons too in the shadows of the large?

Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out what our current life lesson is, as it can arrive seemingly out of nowhere - this is where practices such as Tarot and Meditation come into play to help work it out. Sometimes it can takes weeks, months or even years to go through a soul milestone and it won’t always appear in the preferred way. But when it does arrive, it’s imperative to welcome it in and embrace the changes whether there are highs or lows; it’s an opportunity for growth no matter what. We are also able to ask the Universe to speed these fates along to aid us in reaching our highest good, and it will do so promptly! We are the Universe experiencing itself come alive; it wants us to traverse unknown territories, explore our feelings and wonderings, achieve great things, fall down in self-pity, move forwards, step backwards. Ask for help to speed things along and see where you end up.

For many big “fate/destiny” stepping stones, it can leave you feeling weak, blindsided and sat at rock bottom. But from the ashes rises the phoenix. Your plumage will be brighter, healthier, thicker. Your spirit and energy will be stronger, resilient and more capable of setbacks. Our soul will be craving knowledge which means we will want to experience more, get lost more, accept challenges more, step out of our comfort more. It’s a funny thing because at some point in the future unknown, we will find ourselves smiling through it all. We will know that we can join the predestined as an equal, a willing participant and a master of our fate.

Scary puppy

The Close-Up Face of a Spider.

Our Amazing Solar System

Luffy that u bro???? 😁 Legit tho i love this movie so much❤❤ it was so beautiful and the soundtrack was absolutely amazing❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

#art #alive #artist #nature #faerie #fairy #plantsofinstagram #plants #flowers #tattoo #meadow#meditation #lake #onewithnature #universe #calmn #mountains #grapes #days #random #tuesday #evening #sketchbook #sketch #pencildrawing #blackandwhite #chaoticenergy https://www.instagram.com/p/B20DMxJg2Ci/?igshid=1s69qaca5i3fr

"OGGI VORREI" , l'ultimo singolo dell'album "Amore Eterno" di Vito Rotolo, disponile ora su Youtube e Spotify.

Link Youtube 👇❤️ (Like and share)

Seeing the Invisible Universe

This computer-simulated image shows a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy. The black region in the center represents the black hole’s event horizon, beyond which no light can escape the massive object’s gravitational grip. The black hole’s powerful gravity distorts space around it like a funhouse mirror. Light from background stars is stretched and smeared as it skims by the black hole. You might wonder — if this Tumblr post is about invisible things, what’s with all the pictures? Even though we can’t see these things with our eyes or even our telescopes, we can still learn about them by studying how they affect their surroundings. Then, we can use what we know to make visualizations that represent our understanding.

When you think of the invisible, you might first picture something fantastical like a magic Ring or Wonder Woman’s airplane, but invisible things surround us every day. Read on to learn about seven of our favorite invisible things in the universe!

1. Black Holes

This animation illustrates what happens when an unlucky star strays too close to a monster black hole. Gravitational forces create intense tides that break the star apart into a stream of gas. The trailing part of the stream escapes the system, while the leading part swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. A powerful jet can also form. This cataclysmic phenomenon is called a tidal disruption event.

You know ‘em, and we love ‘em. Black holes are balls of matter packed so tight that their gravity allows nothing — not even light — to escape. Most black holes form when heavy stars collapse under their own weight, crushing their mass to a theoretical singular point of infinite density.

Although they don’t reflect or emit light, we know black holes exist because they influence the environment around them — like tugging on star orbits. Black holes distort space-time, warping the path light travels through, so scientists can also identify black holes by noticing tiny changes in star brightness or position.

2. Dark Matter

A simulation of dark matter forming large-scale structure due to gravity.

What do you call something that doesn’t interact with light, has a gravitational pull, and outnumbers all the visible stuff in the universe by five times? Scientists went with “dark matter,” and they think it's the backbone of our universe’s large-scale structure. We don’t know what dark matter is — we just know it's nothing we already understand.

We know about dark matter because of its gravitational effects on galaxies and galaxy clusters — observations of how they move tell us there must be something there that we can’t see. Like black holes, we can also see light bend as dark matter’s mass warps space-time.

3. Dark Energy

Animation showing a graph of the universe’s expansion over time. While cosmic expansion slowed following the end of inflation, it began picking up the pace around 5 billion years ago. Scientists still aren’t sure why.

No one knows what dark energy is either — just that it’s pushing our universe to expand faster and faster. Some potential theories include an ever-present energy, a defect in the universe’s fabric, or a flaw in our understanding of gravity.

Scientists previously thought that all the universe’s mass would gravitationally attract, slowing its expansion over time. But when they noticed distant galaxies moving away from us faster than expected, researchers knew something was beating gravity on cosmic scales. After further investigation, scientists found traces of dark energy’s influence everywhere — from large-scale structure to the background radiation that permeates the universe.

4. Gravitational Waves

Two black holes orbit each other and generate space-time ripples called gravitational waves in this animation.

Like the ripples in a pond, the most extreme events in the universe — such as black hole mergers — send waves through the fabric of space-time. All moving masses can create gravitational waves, but they are usually so small and weak that we can only detect those caused by massive collisions.  Even then they only cause infinitesimal changes in space-time by the time they reach us. Scientists use lasers, like the ground-based LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) to detect this precise change. They also watch pulsar timing, like cosmic clocks, to catch tiny timing differences caused by gravitational waves.

This animation shows gamma rays (magenta), the most energetic form of light, and elusive particles called neutrinos (gray) formed in the jet of an active galaxy far, far away. The emission traveled for about 4 billion years before reaching Earth. On Sept. 22, 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detected the arrival of a single high-energy neutrino. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope showed that the source was a black-hole-powered galaxy named TXS 0506+056, which at the time of the detection was producing the strongest gamma-ray activity Fermi had seen from it in a decade of observations.

5. Neutrinos

This animation shows gamma rays (magenta), the most energetic form of light, and elusive particles called neutrinos (gray) formed in the jet of an active galaxy far, far away. The emission traveled for about 4 billion years before reaching Earth. On Sept. 22, 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detected the arrival of a single high-energy neutrino. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope showed that the source was a black-hole-powered galaxy named TXS 0506+056, which at the time of the detection was producing the strongest gamma-ray activity Fermi had seen from it in a decade of observations.

Because only gravity and the weak force affect neutrinos, they don’t easily interact with other matter — hundreds of trillions of these tiny, uncharged particles pass through you every second! Neutrinos come from unstable atom decay all around us, from nuclear reactions in the Sun to exploding stars, black holes, and even bananas.

Scientists theoretically predicted neutrinos, but we know they actually exist because, like black holes, they sometimes influence their surroundings. The National Science Foundation’s IceCube Neutrino Observatory detects when neutrinos interact with other subatomic particles in ice via the weak force.

6. Cosmic Rays

This animation illustrates cosmic ray particles striking Earth's atmosphere and creating showers of particles.

Every day, trillions of cosmic rays pelt Earth’s atmosphere, careening in at nearly light-speed — mostly from outside our solar system. Magnetic fields knock these tiny charged particles around space until we can hardly tell where they came from, but we think high energy events like supernovae can accelerate them. Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protect us from cosmic rays, meaning few actually make it to the ground.

Though we don’t see the cosmic rays that make it to the ground, they tamper with equipment, showing up as radiation or as “bright” dots that come and go between pictures on some digital cameras. Cosmic rays can harm astronauts in space, so there are plenty of precautions to protect and monitor them.

7. (Most) Electromagnetic Radiation

The electromagnetic spectrum is the name we use when we talk about different types of light as a group. The parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, arranged from highest to lowest energy are: gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, visible light, infrared light, microwaves, and radio waves. All the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are the same thing — radiation. Radiation is made up of a stream of photons — particles without mass that move in a wave pattern all at the same speed, the speed of light. Each photon contains a certain amount of energy.

The light that we see is a small slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, which spans many wavelengths. We frequently use different wavelengths of light — from radios to airport security scanners and telescopes.

Visible light makes it possible for many of us to perceive the universe every day, but this range of light is just 0.0035 percent of the entire spectrum. With this in mind, it seems that we live in a universe that’s more invisible than not! NASA missions like NASA's Fermi, James Webb, and Nancy Grace Roman  space telescopes will continue to uncloak the cosmos and answer some of science’s most mysterious questions.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

5 Unpredictable Things Swift Has Studied (and 1 It’s Still Looking For)

Our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory — Swift for short — is celebrating its 20th anniversary! The satellite studies cosmic objects and events using visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light. Swift plays a key role in our efforts to observe our ever-changing universe. Here are a few cosmic surprises Swift has caught over the years — plus one scientists hope to see.

#BOAT

Swift was designed to detect and study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. These bursts occur all over the sky without warning, with about one a day detected on average. They also usually last less than a minute – sometimes less than a few seconds – so you need a telescope like Swift that can quickly spot and precisely locate these new events.

In the fall of 2022, for example, Swift helped study a gamma-ray burst nicknamed the BOAT, or brightest of all time. The image above depicts X-rays Swift detected for 12 days after the initial flash. Dust in our galaxy scattered the X-ray light back to us, creating an extraordinary set of expanding rings.

Star meets black hole

Tidal disruptions happen when an unlucky star strays too close to a black hole. Gravitational forces break the star apart into a stream of gas, as seen above. Some of the gas escapes, but some swings back around the black hole and creates a disk of debris that orbits around it.

These events are rare. They only occur once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a galaxy the size of our Milky Way. Astronomers can’t predict when or where they’ll pop up, but Swift’s quick reflexes have helped it observe several tidal disruption events in other galaxies over its 20-year career.

Active galaxies

Usually, we think of galaxies – and most other things in the universe – as changing so slowly that we can’t see the changes. But about 10% of the universe’s galaxies are active, which means their black hole-powered centers are very bright and have a lot going on. They can produce high-speed particle jets or flares of light. Sometimes scientists can catch and watch these real-time changes.

For example, for several years starting in 2018, Swift and other telescopes observed changes in a galaxy’s X-ray and ultraviolet light that led them to think the galaxy’s magnetic field had flipped 180 degrees.

Magnetic star remnants

Magnetars are a type of neutron star, a very dense leftover of a massive star that exploded in a supernova. Magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields we know of — up to 10 trillion times more intense than a refrigerator magnet and a thousand times stronger than a typical neutron star’s.

Occasionally, magnetars experience outbursts related to sudden changes in their magnetic fields that can last for months or even years. Swift detected such an outburst from a magnetar in 2020. The satellite’s X-ray observations helped scientists determine that the city-sized object was rotating once every 10.4 seconds.

Comets

Swift has also studied comets in our own solar system. Comets are town-sized snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust. When one gets close to our Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing halo.

In 2019, Swift watched a comet called 2I/Borisov. Using ultraviolet light, scientists calculated that Borisov lost enough water to fill 92 Olympic-size swimming pools! (Another interesting fact about Borisov: Astronomers think it came from outside our solar system.)

What's next for Swift?

Swift has studied a lot of cool events and objects over its two decades, but there are still a few events scientists are hoping it’ll see.

Swift is an important part of a new era of astrophysics called multimessenger astronomy, which is where scientists use light, particles, and space-time ripples called gravitational waves to study different aspects of cosmic events.

In 2017, Swift and other observatories detected light and gravitational waves from the same event, a gamma-ray burst, for the first time. But what astronomers really want is to detect all three messengers from the same event.

As Swift enters its 20th year, it’ll keep watching the ever-changing sky.

Keep up with Swift through NASA Universe on X, Facebook, and Instagram. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

A Tour of Cosmic Temperatures

We often think of space as “cold,” but its temperature can vary enormously depending on where you visit. If the difference between summer and winter on Earth feels extreme, imagine the range of temperatures between the coldest and hottest places in the universe — it’s trillions of degrees! So let’s take a tour of cosmic temperatures … from the coldest spots to the hottest temperatures yet achieved.

First, a little vocabulary: Astronomers use the Kelvin temperature scale, which is represented by the symbol K. Going up by 1 K is the same as going up 1°C, but the scale begins at 0 K, or -273°C, which is also called absolute zero. This is the temperature where the atoms in stuff stop moving. We’ll measure our temperatures in this tour in kelvins, but also convert them to make them more familiar!

We’ll start on the chilly end of the scale with our CAL (Cold Atom Lab) on the International Space Station, which can chill atoms to within one ten billionth of a degree above 0 K, just a fraction above absolute zero.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Just slightly warmer is the Resolve sensor inside XRISM, pronounced “crism,” short for the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission. This is an international collaboration led by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) with NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). Resolve operates at one twentieth of a degree above 0 K. Why? To measure the heat from individual X-rays striking its 36 pixels!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Resolve and CAL are both colder than the Boomerang Nebula, the coldest known region in the cosmos at just 1 K! This cloud of dust and gas left over from a Sun-like star is about 5,000 light-years from Earth. Scientists are studying why it’s colder than the natural background temperature of deep space.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Let’s talk about some temperatures closer to home. Icy gas giant Neptune is the coldest major planet. It has an average temperature of 72 K at the height in its atmosphere where the pressure is equivalent to sea level on Earth. Explore how that compares to other objects in our solar system!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

How about Earth? According to NOAA, Death Valley set the world’s surface air temperature record on July 10, 1913. This record of 330 K has yet to be broken — but recent heat waves have come close. (If you’re curious about the coldest temperature measured on Earth, that’d be 183.95 K (-128.6°F or -89.2°C) at Vostok Station, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.)

We monitor Earth's global average temperature to understand how our planet is changing due to human activities. Last year, 2023, was the warmest year on our record, which stretches back to 1880.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

The inside of our planet is even hotter. Earth’s inner core is a solid sphere made of iron and nickel that’s about 759 miles (1,221 kilometers) in radius. It reaches temperatures up to 5,600 K.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We might assume stars would be much hotter than our planet, but the surface of Rigel is only about twice the temperature of Earth’s core at 11,000 K. Rigel is a young, blue star in the constellation Orion, and one of the brightest stars in our night sky.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger 

We study temperatures on large and small scales. The electrons in hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, can be stripped away from their atoms in a process called ionization at a temperature around 158,000 K. When these electrons join back up with ionized atoms, light is produced. Ionization is what makes some clouds of gas and dust, like the Orion Nebula, glow.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We already talked about the temperature on a star’s surface, but the material surrounding a star gets much, much hotter! Our Sun’s surface is about 5,800 K (10,000°F or 5,500°C), but the outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, called the corona, can reach millions of kelvins.

Our Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona in 2021, helping us answer questions like why it is so much hotter than the Sun's surface. This is one of the mysteries of the Sun that solar scientists have been trying to figure out for years.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Looking for a hotter spot? Located about 240 million light-years away, the Perseus galaxy cluster contains thousands of galaxies. It’s surrounded by a vast cloud of gas heated up to tens of millions of kelvins that glows in X-ray light. Our telescopes found a giant wave rolling through this cluster’s hot gas, likely due to a smaller cluster grazing it billions of years ago.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Now things are really starting to heat up! When massive stars — ones with eight times the mass of our Sun or more — run out of fuel, they put on a show. On their way to becoming black holes or neutron stars, these stars will shed their outer layers in a supernova explosion. These layers can reach temperatures of 300 million K!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman

We couldn’t explore cosmic temperatures without talking about black holes. When stuff gets too close to a black hole, it can become part of a hot, orbiting debris disk with a conical corona swirling above it. As the material churns, it heats up and emits light, making it glow. This hot environment, which can reach temperatures of a billion kelvins, helps us find and study black holes even though they don’t emit light themselves.

JAXA’s XRISM telescope, which we mentioned at the start of our tour, uses its supercool Resolve detector to explore the scorching conditions around these intriguing, extreme objects.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

Our universe’s origins are even hotter. Just one second after the big bang, our tiny, baby universe consisted of an extremely hot — around 10 billion K — “soup” of light and particles. It had to cool for a few minutes before the first elements could form. The oldest light we can see, the cosmic microwave background, is from about 380,000 years after the big bang, and shows us the heat left over from these earlier moments.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We’ve ventured far in distance and time … but the final spot on our temperature adventure is back on Earth! Scientists use the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to smash teensy particles together at superspeeds to simulate the conditions of the early universe. In 2012, they generated a plasma that was over 5 trillion K, setting a world record for the highest human-made temperature.

Want this tour as a poster? You can download it here in a vertical or horizontal version!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Explore the wonderful and weird cosmos with NASA Universe on X, Facebook, and Instagram. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!