Have you ever looked up to the night sky and the wonders of space travel crossed your mind? Or maybe the vast number of mysteries deep in the cosmos? There are many mysteries on the cosmic scale that scientists and citizens wish to uncover. Here are the most popular mysteries that are yet to be solved.
What Caused The Big Bang?
Let’s start the first mystery with a bang! (No pun intended.) Anyways, the Big Bang is the scientists’ theory that has become the reasoning for the creation of our universe. Their theory consisted of a speck jammed into a very dense point, so thick that it exploded with a force equivalent to the unimaginable. However, to figure out the cause of the Big Bang, scientists suggest that there must have been some event that happened before the Big Bang. A fun fact is that the events of the Big Bang are still taking place, travelling deeper and further into space. Which brings us to the next mystery.
Will The Universe End?
The idea of the universe ending is a question that scientists have wondered about for years. There are many theories on what could happen. Stars will die, planets will wither, but scientifically, the universe will never end. A mysterious energy we refer to as dark energy has boosted the universe’s expansion rate. (The more area it uncovers, the faster the effect of the Big Bang occurs.)
Dark Matter, Anti Matter, And Dark Energy
What is this mysterious energy? Well, it isn’t just one. As scary as it sounds, dark energy takes up around 70% of the universe. It is the only reason why the expansion of the universe is increasing at high rates. As said by a writer at Science.org, “It was thought that the expansion of the universe caused by the big bang would slow down over time because of gravity pulling it together, but it hasn’t, it has increased.” Overall, scientists still aren’t sure of what dark matter really is, they just know its effect on the universe.
As dark as it sounds, dark matter is a big benefit to the universe; it holds gravity together. Without it, everything in the universe would be scattered everywhere. Dark matter doesn’t react to light, and there’s not much known about it other than that it’s very important. Unlike dark matter, antimatter is just the way it sounds – The opposite of matter. As this article is being written, scientists are a step closer to solving the mystery behind antimatter. It dates back to the Big Bang when matter and antimatter should have combined, but somehow matter overtook it. Antimatter only exists in the universe for seconds before it is wiped out. BBC states that scientists are working to recreate it by using the negative versions of atoms. In this experiment, hydrogen is being used because it is the simplest atom, with the sun being made up of hydrogen and antihydrogen, in hopes of discovering how the universe came into existence.
How Do Galaxies Form?
The answers to the galaxies that are formed have been developed for generations as astronomers continue to explore the deep universe. They found that the answer is gravity – The secret formula to how galaxies form. Areas of slighter greater density attracted more matter and grew bigger over time. Matter turned into lumps that got pulled together, which eventually grew galaxies like the Milky Way. As a result, with a billion years in time, a galaxy would have been formed.
Is There Life Beyond Earth?
The short answer is that scientists don’t have enough information to answer that question. As the search for life continues, scientists are starting to find more and more habitable planets that play a huge role in finding life. A good example of a potential habitable planet is Europa, which is one of Jupiter’s moons. Its surface is ice with an ocean beneath it, from what scientists know, and it has towering mountains, ridges, and grooves, which make the surface not so smooth, like Earth. The ocean being beneath the ice, with proof of ice blocks floating to the surface, tells us that there is heat within the planet.
Fun Fact About Our Solar System’s Uniqueness
Other solar systems have exoplanets that spiral inward in faster orbits and knock out other planets in the process of orbiting the star. This destroys the system’s way of orbiting. For that simple reason, life would be very hard to survive in any other solar system that orbits in such a way. This makes our solar system very unique.
