Regarding astronomy and the number of achievements that were made and puzzles solved, 2016 was a magnificent year. In fact, with the discovery of gravitational waves and other amazing breakthroughs, 2016 was probably the best year astronomers have had in a few decades. But, there’s still many a conundrum that still baffle even the best of scientists when it comes to the universe. Keep reading for what we feel are some of the most important questions still outstanding about the universe today:
- What are dark matter and dark energy? Dark matter and dark energy remain two of the biggest mysteries known in astronomy. Dark matter is said to make up more than 25 percent of the universe’s total mass. No one has a solid explanation for what this is, but the long and the short of it is that it consists of some type of particle that moves fast but barely interacts with any ordinary matter. But, trying to prove these dark particles exist has been a nightmare for scientists since they first discovered them. Roberto Abraham, University of Toronto physicist, says, “It would be nice to know what dark matter particle is – or even to have some reassurance that it is a particle. I think that’s the most likely thing, but I’m open to the possibility that we need to be modified gravity.” Dark energy, on the other hand, refers to the mysterious force that pushes galaxies further away from the Milky Way. Dark energy plays a pivotal role in cosmic evolution (perhaps even more so than dark matter), and is said to make up around two-thirds of the of the universe’s total energy.
- Are we alone in the universe? Astronomers estimate there to be at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and given the size of this number, it’s unlikely that we’ll be the only existing intelligent life form. Scientists now have the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array to help them in the search for aliens. A senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, Seth Shostak, suggests that as many as one in five planets is habitable, but that’s just the beginning. He is that confident of life out there that he bet fellow scientists a coffee that we’d find an alien signal within the next 24 years. I guess only time will tell with that one.
- What’s inside a black hole? Blacks holes remain a mystery to astronomers as they are essentially regions of space where nothing can escape, so how are we supposed to know what’s inside? Scientists have worked out how they form, just not what’s inside, and it may be quite some time before they do.
- What came before the Big Bang? The simple answer is nothing. If time began with the Big Bang, how could anything have possibly come before it? However, now there are some physicists that believe time didn’t begin with the Big Bang Theory, but that it somehow developed once the universe had reached a certain complexity. But, the truth is that we’re probably no further forward with this question than we were when it was first mentioned.
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