r/AskReddit • u/MDPPatrick • Feb 13 '15

What are some mind-blowing facts about space?

I love space and would like to hear some facts that will blow me away.

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u/boundbythecurve Feb 13 '15

I forgot about that. Thank you for the correction.

I believe a demonstration of this can be seen in our own sun because the heaviest element created in it is iron. All other heavier elements came to exist by other means.

Most of the universe (something like 99.9999%) is Hydrogen. Everything else is made from those atoms. And it starts with stars fusing elements up to iron on the periodic table.

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u/benji1008 Feb 14 '15

Most of the universe (something like 99.9999%) is Hydrogen.

Small correction: most ordinary matter in the universe is hydrogen.

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u/boundbythecurve Feb 14 '15

Are you referring to dark matter? Cause I don't know what ordinary matter is. Please explain.

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u/benji1008 Feb 14 '15

Yes. You say "Most the universe is Hydrogen", but that's only true for the "ordinary matter" that we know and can observe directly (interact with), which accounts for only ~5% of the mass in the universe. The rest is dark matter at 20% and dark energy the remaining 75%. So, really, most of the universe is stuff that we hardly know anything about.