10 universe theories that will keep you up at night part two
ever look at the sky on sleepless nights and wonder till dawn what mysteries those
distant stars are hiding oh what did you say we already did this one did you really think
the infinite universe has only 10 theories that would keep you up at night well here's 10 more
humans have been contemplating colonizing mars for decades now and it seems much more plausible
with the passing of time of course mars is the most likely candidate for human migration in
our solar system one of the biggest reasons for this is that all of the research data gathered by
different probes and rovers have pointed towards the possibility that mars may have had a very
earth-like atmosphere in the distant past this has forced astrophysicists to wonder if mars might
have harbored microbial life at some point in its existence the notion of extraterrestrial life has
gained more probability points since the water was discovered on the surface of the red planet
yet unfortunately we still haven't discovered any signs of life existing on this planet in the past
and it has baffled scientists all across the globe but we have only scavenged a
small percentage of the planet's surface and there is much more of mars yet to be discovered
who knows what war of the worlds like nightmare could be waiting for us
while mars is part of the inner solar system and a neighbor to earth
our next mystery takes us to the far reaches of our solar system
beyond the eight planets of our solar system lie dwarf planets like pluto and eris
astrophysicists have had suspicions that neptune is not the farthest planet in our solar system
the hypothetical planet x often called planet nine or nibiru is suspected by scientists to be
part of our solar system and orbiting the sun from the shadows beyond the visible reach of humans on
earth in recent years a lot of evidence found by researchers has strengthened the possibility
of another planet in our son's family in 2016 mark brown who is a part of the scientist team
at california institute of technology proposed that a planet that is 10 times the mass of earth
is lurking on the outer edges of our solar system according to nasa caltech researchers
mathematical evidence suggests that planet nine is twenty times farther from the sun than neptune
if true planet nine will need somewhere between ten thousand to twenty thousand earth years to
make one full orbit around the sun however all of this is entirely theoretical for now
astronomers search for distant extrasolar planets every day
whether as the next home for humanity finding the closest alien life or perhaps simply for
understanding the universe we live in better one of the methods used to find these exoplanets is
by measuring dips in brightness caused by a planet when it passes in front of the star
using this method humans have discovered over 4 000 planets outside of our solar system
however one star from the constellation cygnus baffled astronomers when they tried to peek into
the number of planets it may host 1500 light years away from the earth the star is named
kic-8462852 but is more commonly known as tabby star after armenian astronomer tabitha s
boyajian while observing the star astronomers noted that almost 20 of the light emitted by
it is being blocked this is phenomenal because even a planet as big as jupiter would only block
one percent of a star this size and jupiter would have been a brown dwarf star if it were any bigger
certain scientists have speculated that the reason for such a massive dip in tabby's star
could be the dyson swarm a dyson swarm is a hypothetical structure
that can be used to harvest the energy of a star
and that means it would have been deployed by an intelligent race far more advanced than our own
the universe is expanding we all know that that is the reason why our galaxy is moving
constantly but not in the direction every equation predicts it should
one of the craziest observations astronomers have made about the milky way galaxy is that
it is perhaps off course by most calculations astrophysicists have concluded that something
about 220 million light years away is the cause for such strange behavior of our galaxy
this great attractor in the far distant cosmos is tugging our galaxy towards it
like it has a leash on our galaxy's collar however it doesn't seem to be in any hurry as the galaxy
is moving toward it at only 1.4 million miles per hour according to some predictions this
gravitational anomaly is a cluster while others blame dark matter as the culprit regardless
humanity will likely be extinct by the time we will be close enough to discern the mystery
the farther we look in the universe the more mysteries it throws at us
making understanding it an ever-evolving process and in this ever-expanding universe the simplicity
of nothing can be quite complex and mind-boggling the great void is a giant nothingness in the
fabric of space and time it is not a black hole mind you as it does not have gravity
which is evident from the light passing through it it has nothing in it neither matter nor dark
matter and yet the great void has an estimated diameter of about 1.3 billion light years
that makes the great void largest among all the voids we have found in outer space
scientists speculate that even though it doesn't have matter it still contains dark energy
when speaking of dark matter we all have heard that to understand the size of the universe you
have to imagine more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth
fascinatingly the ordinary matter that includes stars planets pulsars asteroids
and meteors does not even comprise five percent of the total mass and energy of the universe
and if that's not enough to keep you up at night get this
we have very little idea of what comprises the remaining 95 of the universe broadly classified as
dark matter this hypothetical element has never been directly observed but it surely exists as it
is evident by dark matter's gravitational pull on ordinary matter and gravitational lensing
gravitational lensing is the distortion or bending of the light caused by the gravitational pull of
massive cosmic objects in space a lot of experiments are still being conducted to detect
dark matter particles however none of these have been conclusively identified so far
and we are still very much in the dark about dark matter and dark energy
dark energy may sound like a mysterious sci-fi weaponized energy but in reality it is one of
the most fascinating mysteries of the universe like dark matter dark energy is also hypothetical
it is theorized that dark energy is a form of energy that exists in
all of space and is accelerating the expansion of the universe according to
current measurements it contributes to 68.3 percent of the total energy of the universe
we do know of its potential because of the observations of the cosmic microwave background or
c cmb b can be defined as a snapshot of thermal radiation that existed soon after the big bang
and when we say soon we mean nearly 400 000 years after the big bang
brianna may have told you nothing shines brighter than a diamond in the sky
but the brightest thing observed in outer space is a gamma-ray burst
gamma-ray burst doesn't exactly roll off the tongue a grb releases more energy in merely a few
seconds than a sun-like star would in its entire lifetime humans have observed many gamma-ray
bursts in random locations throughout space and time for the last 40 years some astrophysicists
believe distant galaxies to be the source of these but no definite explanations are known as of now
it is also speculated that if one of these events were to happen nearby and in our direction it
would easily fry our entire planet effectively wiping out every living being on earth a gamma-ray
burst observed on june 14 2006 was a mystery of its own because unlike other grbs this one
lasted for a grand 102 seconds this has led to the speculation that it could have been a white hole
famously dubbed as spooky action at a distance by a dubious albert einstein
quantum entanglement is the phenomenon by which two particles in totally different
parts of the universe can be linked to one another mirroring the behavior and state of their partner
quantum entanglement is an annoying mystery because it breaks even the fundamental laws
of physics which we previously thought was impossible for particles to be connected across
such fast distances they must be sending signals to one another that travel faster than the speed
of light studies have proven the existence of quantum entanglement and it might take humans
quite some time to understand it however there is a possibility we can use quantum entanglement
even before comprehending it completely because of its spooky characteristics
entanglement could eventually become the bedrock of next generation computing and communications
wormholes are quite common in sci-fi movies and we all have wondered what it would be like to travel
in distant parts of the universe through them in an instant often defined as a shortcut bending
time and space between two distant points of the universe however these tunnels are considered
purely hypothetical since albert einstein theorized them in his general theory of relativity
einstein considered time as the fourth dimension of the universe along with the
spatial dimension as the first three together they form what einstein called space-time
so a wormhole would be an extremely curved region in space-time that resembles two
interconnected funnels and connects two distant points in space like a tunnel from a mathematical
perspective such a shortcut would be very possible but no one has ever observed one
moreover studies indicate that even if such a wormhole existed it would be highly unstable to
travel through if for example a spaceship were to fly into one it would instantly collapse
into a black hole however given the possibility of their existence if humans could master the
concept we could find ourselves manipulating the space-time continuum so what do you think will we
ever get the opportunity to explore the far cosmos through wormholes what keeps you up at night
tell us in the comments and as always thank you for watching fact nominal