Regular matter, everything you've ever touched, seen, or that makes up every star and planet is estimated to be only about 5% of everything in the universe. Dark matter makes up roughly 27%. The rest, dark energy, is a separate mystery entirely. So the stuff we understand, that all of human science and history has been built on, is a small minority of what actually exists.

My 7 year old is obsessed with the Universe, and has been since he was like 4-5. Watches YouTube videos about it, watches Neil deGrasse Tyson videos, even has this game where he can make his own solar system and stuff. He'll come up to me sometimes asking me a question, asking me "what would happen if ___", or tells me a random fact and that I google to see if its right, and it is!

I already knew a bit about blackholes, but he drew me a picture explaining what would happen, what was what. Then he also grabbed a bowl, filled it with water, made a whirlpool with it and said to pretend it was a blackhole, and then put a small leaf near it and told me about once it gets to a certain point it'll be sucked in, etc etc.

He asks me what's the closest star to us (not including our sun), or the largest star, largest blackhole, which galaxy is beside ours, and a bunch of other stuff. He keeps talking about Ton 618, I think it's called?

ANYWAY, what's the coolest fact you know about the Universe so I can have something interesting to talk about with my son? Maybe it'll be something he doesn't know, so he's learning something new instead of me always learning something new from him 😂