What Are The Biggest Mysteries in Astronomy?
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Black Holes? Dark Energy? Dark Matter? Alien Life? What are the biggest mysteries that still exist out there for us to figure out? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Follow us on Tumblr: http://universetoday.tumblr.com/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer Susie Murph - @susiemmurph Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer Edited by: Chad Weber Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcoZNrSveE&feature=youtu.be “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” These are the words of Albert Einstein. I assume he was talking about Minecraft, but I guess it applies to the Universe too. There are many examples: astronomers try to discover the rate of the expansion of the Universe, and learn a dark energy is accelerating its expansion. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft finally images Saturn’s moon Iapetus, and finds a strange equatorial ridge - how the heck did that get there? Did the Celestials forget to trim it when it came out of the packaging? There have always been, and, let’s go as far as to say that there always will be, mysteries in astronomy. Although the nature of the mysteries may change, the total number is always going up. Hundreds of years ago, people wanted to know how the planets moved through sky (conservation of angular momentum), how old the Earth was (4.54 billion years), or what kept the Moon from flying off into space (gravity). Just a century ago, astronomers weren’t sure what galaxies were (islands of stars), or how the Sun generated energy (nuclear fusion). And just a few decades ago, we didn’t know what caused quasars (feeding supermassive black holes), or how old the Universe was (13.8 billion years). Each of these mysteries has been solved, or at least, we’ve a got a pretty good understanding of what’s going on. Science continues to explore and seek answers to the mysteries we have, and as it does it opens up new brand doors. Fortunately for anyone who’s thinking of going into astronomy as a career, there are a handful of really compelling mysteries to explore right now: Is the Universe finite or infinite? We can see light that left shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years in all directions. And the expansion of the Universe has carried these regions more than 45 billion light-years away from us. But the Universe is probably much larger than that, and may be even infinite. What is dark matter? Thanks to gravitational lensing, astronomers can perceive vast halos of invisible material around all galaxies. But what is this stuff, and why doesn’t it interact with any other matter? What is dark energy? When trying to discover the expansion rate of the Universe, astronomers discovered that the expansion is actually accelerating? Why is this happening? Is something causing this force, or do we just not understand gravity at the largest scales? There are supermassive black holes at the heart of pretty much every galaxy. Did these supermassive black holes form first, and then the galaxies around them? Or was it the other way around? The Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago, and the expansion of the Universe has continued ever since. But what came before the Big Bang? In fact, what even caused the Big Bang? Has it been Big Bangs over and over again? Are we alone in the Universe? Is there life on any other world or star system? And is anyone out there we could talk to? Shortly after the Big Bang, incomprehensible amounts of matter and antimatter annihilated each other. But for some reason, there was a slightly higher ratio of matter - and so we have a matter dominated Universe. Why? Is this the only Universe? Is there a multiverse of universes out there? How do I get to the Whedonverse?
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Damn, here he is again but now he has an addition. I'm currently almost 81 but my interest started about 54 yrs, ago, so bear with me.
Just got a little surprise on Flipboard out of a university in Amsterdam. A post was made concerning the possible relationship of Dark Matter/Dark Energy (the same to me) to gravity and possibly throwing a wrench into the theory of relativity. With some variance in words, it walked hand in hand with some comments I made on your videos. It stated that part of these theories started back in 2010. It also stated, rather than the older gravitational theories, it is being theorized that it possibly makes up the mechanics of how the galaxies work in the universe. EM energy is now being look at as actually the gravitational force.
Anyway, it sent a chill up my spine
as I read it because I have no credibility on these subjects but just trying to put things together. -
Just reviewing some old videos and I noticed a very intriguing, inquisitive question.
What is the point of a universe?
This immediately brought to mind simply because universes are infinate so actually there is no point. They are just there.
This also brings to mind, if the universe is infinite, then why does there even have to be multiple universes?
Maybe all that is necessary is the multiple, possibly infinate, number of dimensions within the universe. -
I'm from Mississippi and the majority of people around here think that if you believe in the science behind the big bang and such that you cannot believe in God. To the contrary, when I look up at the night sky or through my telescope, I think....this could be nothing but God. There's so much we don't understand that who else could be responsible for something so majestic and mysterious other than him? Its the curious things in life that make it worth living. Although, just as you pointed out, we do know so very little and what we think we know is always changing. I have to chuckle to myself everytime I read somewhere that we were wrong about something we have always thought to be a scientifically proven fact. It's just even more proof to me that God is responsible for all of it and that we weren't meant to understand even a portion of it. While he made us curious by nature and that will never cease, I don't believe that even in a million years would we truly understand most of the mysteries of the universe. Even so, I'm still fascinated with every inch of the unknown. My curiosity is just driven less by a need for an answer and more by the desire to witness as much as I can of God's great creation. And maybe I tell myself that so as not to be driven crazy for not knowing, but I'm not a religious person. Still, it feels like a spiritual experience everytime I look into the night sky. It restores my belief in a higher power like no church ever could.
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I'm from Mississippi and the majority of people around here think that if you believe in the science behind the big bang and such that you cannot believe in God. To the contrary, when I look up at the night sky or through my telescope, I think....this could be nothing but God. There's so much we don't understand that who else could be responsible for something so majestic and mysterious other than him? Its the curious things in life that make it worth living. Although, just as you pointed out, we do know so very little and what we think we know is always changing. I have to chuckle to myself everytime I read somewhere that we were wrong about something we have always thought to be a scientifically proven fact. It's just even more proof to me that God is responsible for all of it and that we weren't meant to understand even a portion of it. While he made us curious by nature and that will never cease, I don't believe that even in a million years would we truly understand most of the mysteries of the universe. Even so, I'm still fascinated with every inch of the unknown. My curiosity is just driven less by a need for an answer and more by the desire to witness as much as I can of God's great creation. And maybe I tell myself that so as not to be driven crazy for not knowing, but I'm not a religious person. Still, it feels like a spiritual experience everytime I look into the night sky. It restores my belief in a higher power like no church ever could.
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I'm from Mississippi and the majority of people around here think that if you believe in the science behind the big bang and such that you cannot believe in God. To the contrary, when I look up at the night sky or through my telescope, I think....this could be nothing but God. There's so much we don't understand that who else could be responsible for something so majestic and mysterious other than him? Its the curious things in life that make it worth living. Although, just as you pointed out, we do know so very little and what we think we know is always changing. I have to chuckle to myself everytime I read somewhere that we were wrong about something we have always thought to be a scientifically proven fact. It's just even more proof to me that God is responsible for all of it and that we weren't meant to understand even a portion of it. While he made us curious by nature and that will never cease, I don't believe that even in a million years would we truly understand most of the mysteries of the universe. Even so, I'm still fascinated with every inch of the unknown. My curiosity is just driven less by a need for an answer and more by the desire to witness as much as I can of God's great creation. And maybe I tell myself that so as not to be driven crazy for not knowing, but I'm not a religious person. Still, it feels like a spiritual experience everytime I look into the night sky. It restores my belief in a higher power like no church ever could.
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This is just a little update, new thought or whatever to my previous post.
Might have got into this on another one of your videos but this is a good place to repeat it.
Since electromagnetism is throughout the universe and not only in all space and matter, including us, this is the glue or dark matter magnetic energy that possibly holds everything together and in place due to its magnetic property. EM is the energy in our ability to think and transfer thoughts to another person (telepathic) or to an object.
This could be very basic and cover a lot of territory and answer a number of questions.
All we know is it's existance and presents everywhere. We also know it is interdimentional but we've learned to access it's energy for lighting, and other electric gadgets. Other than that, it's still a mystery as to where or how it originates.
Since it is interdimentional, it could be the God particle were looking for (the key element for everything ).
I think the following part is what I mentioned on another post.
EM could also be the key or hold the reasoning and answer to the black hole information paradox. If all matter and gasses are compressed to the point of effecting or creating X-rays, just beyond this point it could regress back to EM energy and at that point, could easily pass through to another dimension and not be retrievable which now seems to be the case and makes sense to me. -
i think our smartest ppl dont know even 1% of how things actually work.
we didnt even know how to fly just over a hundred years ago,i dont believe they know how old the universe is, just a short time ago they thought that our galaxy was all there was.
i think mankind has a couple of thousand years to go b4 we can say we can actually say how things actually work. -
From our understanding of physics, Infinite can't exist, the Universe is expanding, meaning there's a limit to it. This was a great episode and I can't wait to find out more, love your channel.
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Do a complete Core of Earth Episode and how it maintains its energy....seems similar to a Star on a much smaller scale. Thankyou for your hard work and dedication, wish I had these videos way back in school when I was a kid. Maybe add in a bit about the crust of the earth with it. Thkyou.
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I'd say this was a bad video. you gave questions that are more than basic. waste of 4 minutes
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Just subscribed, too. great channel, thanks.
My question is, are all the galaxies racing away from a particular point in space in a roughly similar direction (like water would would do from, let's say, a tiny hole in a pressurised pipe), or is it more like an actually explosion where they travel away from each other in an ever expanding sphere, like an inflating bubble (hence the 'expansion' term)?
Whichever is the answer, do Astronomers know the point in space/ the universe where it all started from (roughly, of course)? -
Gaagh! You're robbing me of sleep here cos I can't stop watching your videos! ;) awesome work another fascinating one. Am just gonna regret it when I have to get up and have spent all night thinking about all this having finally dragged myself away from the iPad and into bed! Keep up the good work though...
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One of the Great mysteries is: What's inside the Black Hole and how small can singularity be, is the black hole a tiny dot inside a large event horizon or isn't?"
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black holes
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Another Great episode. I just found your channel and going through your archives will grant me hours upon hours of entertainment. Looking forward to it.
On Topic: I really don't know where to begin, as there are so many mysteries that I can't even comprehend the sheer number we know about, much less think about the unknown unknowns. I am the most curious about Dark Energy and the notion of the multiverse which through iteration allows things like matter and life to emerge. So I guess those things are the places to start. I am also curious about dark matter and Big Bang speculation and the notion of a grand unified field theory. Or does Goddel's incompleteness theorem rule out the notion of a GUFT as it applies to a formal system, making it so we can't possibly find a system which answers all those questions with one nice equation. Why does our specific place in the solar system as a rate of change seem to have a subtle rate of change on the weak nuclear force? What do we have to do to see if gravitational waves are a thing? Why is the fine structure constant specifically 137.03599? Why do we have to renormalize quantum coupling theory to get rid of the plethora of infinities in QFT? How can we track our specific placement in the galaxy to ascertain which cluster we and our sisters stars came from, and from which supernova remnants did our heavy matter come from?
The list of known unknowns is almost infinite, and as you mention, whenever we learn about something it opens up more and more questions, meaning the unknown unknowns are almost certainly infinite. Just that notion by itself astounds me. However, my curiosity knows no bounds, and like pretty much every other human, I have a deep desire to know more. -
Fraser,
As I was re-watching your video, it brought to mind Einstein's theory of relativity. Space, time, speed, light (photons), gravity, and energy in whatever form are related integratedly or otherwise. All of this falls back to the oneness derived from Spiritual energy or what we currently don't totally comprehend. When, if ever, we can evolve to the point of being able to manipulate, control and use these intangibles, then we will be through and beyond our current physical constraints. Having these as tools will put us in a completely different and higher state of existence which is currently inconceivable.
It's probably in that larger part of our brain that we've never used yet. -
If energy=matter and matter=energy, is any space actually empty since so many objects emit light and energy in all directions around themselves. Taking into account that photons have matter since it can be bent by gravity
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My grandmother was born in 1910 and passed away in 2011 at age 101. Her mind was "sharp" to the end. I was born in the mid 1950's when she was in her mid 40's. Sitting and talking with her in her final years was astonishing. Do you really know how much the World has changed, and Mankind has accomplished in this tiny 100 year time period? She was in 3rd grade when our soldiers returned from WW1 and she was 31 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I was with her when we watched Apollo land on the Moon in 1969 and she was 59 years old. She held MY grandchildren which were her Great-Great Grandchildren! What will we see in the NEXT 100 years?? It is beyond what we can imagine...
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I belive that the Big Bang was caused by a mega massive star from another universe through a worm hole just exploded. Thats how I think the Big Bang happened.
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