That irregularly light reflecting thing that didn’t quite follow the trajectory it was supposed to that just flew through the solar system a few years back on its way to somewhere else and we never got a chance to look closely at it to see what the fuck it even was

Primordial black holes and rogue planets.

M87

Honestly earth.

Here is so much undiscovered that could help us understand space a lot better.

The idea behind the heliosphere and all its related parts are really interesting. Something about a giant space bubble/teardrop flying through the galaxy that blows my mind. Learning about termination shock and the sink basin example really gave off this weird sense of cosmic grandeur that can be somewhat replicated on earth. As above so below kinda thing.

White dwarfs are cool. I think it’s something like at least 1 quadrillion years to cool down to become a black dwarf.

Black Hole and Neutron Star are my favorite celestial body.

My two biggest are probably Sol and voids. I wish I could directly observe the phase transition as you approach the star’s core, understand it’s corona patterns and behavior, observe deeper to predict CMEs, etc it’s just so close and present in our daily lives and still very mysterious. For the voids I’m not sure maybe because it’s defined by its boundary more than its contents, but they are pretty common and some are huge and it’s just difficult to study something that is defined by its lack of something.

Black Holes are infinitely fascinating!

They’re ’a thing’ we knew nothing about until Einstein wrote a paper, and even though his own math showed their existence, he doubted that they could be real.

Turns out that they are, and that they form the structure of the entire universe.

That’s my object.

My favorite thing is Quantum Field Theory! You know the field of magnetism, you played with it as a kid when you got your hands on two magnets the first time.

Turns out every particle in the standard model has its own field, and an excitation of that field manifests as that type of particle.

David Tong explains it masterfully: https://youtu.be/zNVQfWC_evg

As does HOTU: https://youtu.be/UYW1lKNVI90

EDIT: Both links above are 1+ hours each, and done in layperson terms. No degree needed, just a desire to learn something fascinating.

Honestly, our moon.

I firmly believe that our moon gives us the solar system in short order.

Fuel in the form of Helium-3 (if we can figure that out). Plenty of building material. Much lower gravity well that will allow larger payloads into it’s orbit and larger ships to be constructed. As well as that lower gravity well meaning better fuel efficiency in launching just about any trajectory to anywhere else in the solar system.

Once we have the Moon, we’re 90% of the way to a solar system spanning species. Mars is cool, but not useful in any real sense other than bragging rights.

This going to sound basic but I find the vacuum part of space to be the most interesting from an engineering POV.

We are all use to having an atmosphere we can convex heat out to but as there is no atmosphere where do you send your excess heat to?

Are we still doing “Uranus”?

The S-IVB-506.

This was the third stage of the launch vehicle for Apollo 11. After entering Earth orbit, the S-IVB rocket was responsible for the translunar injection burn. Once the burn was complete, the command module, LEM, astronauts and the spent rocket were then coasting to the moon. The astronauts would detach the CSM, pitch up, translate in, extract the LEM, then thrust with RCS to get clear of the S-IVB. At this point, the rocket is on a coarse to the moon.

Many of them orbit between the Earth and moon to this day. One is speculated to orbit between the Earth and Sun. Many impacted the lunar surface, including the one from Apollo 13.

The S-IVB-506 rocket was the one that carried Apollo 11 to the moon. It’s a piece of human history, floating silently in a heliocentric orbit above us.

What would one even look like?

Like a reddish glowing Jupiter.

Hypothetical, but Black Hole Stars (one of my favourite Kurzgesagt videos).

“Normally that would be the end – today’s stars go supernova, a black hole forms and things calm down. But in this case, the star survives its own death.”

“An impossibly dangerous balance has been created – millions of solar masses pushing in, the angry radiation of a force fed black hole pushing out.”

I’m hoping that some of the new long wavelength teleescopes like JWST might have a chance of seeing one of these beasts.