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.
