Reddit users are sharing the 'scariest' space facts they've ever heard
A number of social media users each shared the “scariest space fact/mystery” they could think of after a recent prompt on the “Ask Reddit” forum. Here are a few of the top responses — make sure your feet are firmly planted on the ground before reading. “The Kessler Effect is the theory that a single destructive event in low earth orbit could create a cascade where satellites break up into tiny fragments taking out other satellites, breaking up into smaller fragments and so on”. This would continue “ until the earth is completely surrounded by a massive cloud of tiny flying death shrapnel which would make leaving this planet almost impossible”. “The speed of light, the fastest speed possible, looks painfully slow when you look at it in the context of even a fraction of our solar system. We’re stuck here, aren’t we”. One user explained vacuum decay, saying “Matter, as it is, isn’t in its full resting state, and a little surge of energy could shift it enough to completely change chemistry and physics in our universe”. Another explained gamma ray bursts. “We could be hit by one of these with very little warning, and if it was reasonably close (in universal terms anyway) could wipe us out rapidly or cause a ton of damage”. Finally, a Redditor who claimed to be an astronomer offered “something to worry about” that could reasonably happen in our lifetimes. “May I introduce you to the Carrington Event of 1859? Basically, Carrington was a scientist who noticed a flash from a huge cluster of sunspots, which was the biggest coronal mass ejection from the sun ever recorded”. It hit Earth within a day- aurora were seen as far south as Hawaii, wires on telephone poles burst into flame, and telegraph operators even reported contacting each other when not connected”. If a similar event were to strike Earth today, it would cause billions of dollars in damage, because blown transformers are super hard to replace and a lot of satellites wouldn’t be able to handle it”
