Space discoveries in the
last few years have increased as we’ve discovered gravitational waves and
liquid water on Mars. But still there is
a lot to discover in this big universe, there's a lot of big questions we don't
have answers for yet. Here are some of the unsolved mysteries about space.
Where do high-energy cosmic
rays come from?
Cosmic rays are full of
high-speed particles that fly through space, these high energy cosmic rays come from outer space and hit on the surface of earth, but their origin is still
unknown. Where do they come from?
CERN explains: "The
lowest energy cosmic rays arrive from the Sun in a stream of charged particles
known as the solar wind, but pinning down the origin of the higher-energy
particles is made difficult as they twist and turn in the magnetic fields of
interstellar space”.
What we can see makes up
only 5% of the universe.
Everything we can see is
only 5% of the universe. The other 95% is dark energy and dark matter.
Dark matter is an invisible
material that makes up the bulk of the matter in galaxies. Scientists think it
exists because of the gravitational force of galaxies.
If we can't actually see
dark matter or dark energy, how do we believe that they exist? The end is, we
don't. Dark energy is an unknown form of energy which is hypothesized to
permeate all of space, tending to accelerate the expansion of the universe.
What's the deal with
"fast radio bursts"?
A fast radio burst (FRB) is
a high-energy astrophysical phenomenon of unknown origin manifested as a transient
radio pulse lasting only a few milliseconds.
Sometimes, if an astronomer
gets lucky, he can spot millisecond-long flashes of radio waves from space called
"fast radio bursts" (FRBs), but same problem lies here that
astronomers don’t know the origin.
Lately, a research paper has been published pointing towards aliens behind these mysterious waves.
How did life on Earth get
started?
We have reached at the very
high level in technological advancement but it is still unknown that how did
life get started on Earth.
Some scientists think it was
carried here on comets or asteroids.
It's a good theory because
we've found organic material on some of the comets and asteroids. Some even
think that a piece of Mars could have landed on Earth and allowed life to get
started. But they are still theories as we have not proved any of them.
Others think that we are
result of a chemical reaction of some simple molecules.
How will the universe end?
Astronomers estimate that in
about 6 billion years, Earth will get vaporized by our dying sun. But what
about the rest of the universe?
There are some theories out
there about it.
Thermodynamics tells us that
a heat death is possible, where everything in the universe becomes the same
temperature as results in the destruction.
There's also an idea called
the Big Crunch. If the universe keeps expanding there will be too much gravity
and all that gravitational force will cause everything to start contracting.
The whole universe will
shrink down putting an end to these mysteries altogether.
What is up with Mars?
There are some life theories
about Mars that, life may have once existed there, and it might even still
exist there. Mars used to hold vast oceans.
Did this planet once hold
life? We are sending human explorers to Mars to find out soon.
Why is there more matter
than antimatter?
We know that when a particle
of matter and a particle of antimatter collide, they crush each other.
If there were an equal
amount of matter and antimatter, our universe would be completely devoid of
particles.
CERN explains: "One of
the greatest challenges in physics is to figure out what happened to the
antimatter, or why we see matter/antimatter asymmetry,"
The Big Bang should have
produced an equal amount of matter and antimatter. That means we would have
been left with a particle-less universe.
