gallant (begallant)

Without gravitational loading, bones no longer bear body weight, and the body begins to lose calcium. Bone density loss in space can reach 1–2% per month, which is much faster than osteoporosis on Earth. That is why astronauts exercise daily under resistance and consume diets rich in calcium and vitamin D. After returning to Earth, bone recovery may take months or even years.

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Astronauts do not sleep in the traditional sense. They sleep in special sleeping bags attached to walls, ceilings, or floors. Without this, a person could drift uncontrollably during sleep and collide with equipment. In addition, the ISS experiences a sunrise and sunset every 90 minutes, which disrupts natural circadian rhythms. Therefore, astronauts use controlled lighting schedules and sometimes medication to regulate sleep.

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May 14, 2009 – Spacewalker John Grunsfeld works on the Hubble Space Telescope while the orbital observatory is anchored to the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. (NASA)

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There are craters on Mercury that never receive sunlight — their floors are permanently hidden in darkness. Because the planet has no atmosphere and sunlight hits it almost vertically, temperatures inside these “eternal shadows” can drop to −170 °C. These areas may contain ancient deposits of water ice — a surprising paradox on the hottest planet in the Solar System.

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In some dwarf galaxies, stars can rotate in opposite directions at the same time: one part of the stellar disk moves clockwise, while the other moves counterclockwise. This happens because such galaxies are formed from the remnants of several small merged systems, and their orbits never fully align.

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There is a faint “radio noise” in space that is actually the echo of the Big Bang. This noise — the cosmic microwave background — fills the entire Universe, and it can be detected even with simple radio equipment. In fact, when you see static on an old TV, a small percentage of that noise is light that has been traveling for 13.8 billion years.

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An intergalactic hydrogen stream "flows" into the Milky Way, feeding the galaxy and supporting the birth of new stars. Without this influx of gas, our galaxy would eventually "exhaust" and cease forming stars.

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