Top 6 weirdest phenomena in our universe
Singularities, positrons, dark energy, Fast Radio Bursts. Will we ever decipher these puzzling wonders?
When I think about supernovae, black holes or dark matter, I must admit — they seem unreal. They appear right out of a good science-fiction book.
But as staggering and elusive as these phenomena might be, they are an integrated part of our universe.
Learning about them is not only fascinating, but also enlightening, as they help demystify fundamental principles of the cosmos.
So let’s take a look at a few of those curiosities that are particularly mindboggling.
Black holes — Defying physics
Predicted by Einstein’s general relativity and theoretically discovered by a German physicist Karl Schwarzschild, these extraordinary objects were for a long time considered a pure mathematical curiosity.
For the first half of the 20th century, most experts agreed that such an object could never form in the real world. Only in the 1960s was the first candidate for a stellar-mass black hole — Cyg X-1 — discovered.
But what are black holes? You’ve probably heard the definition: Regions of spacetime with such strong gravity that nothing, not even light, can escape. What does that even mean?
Stellar-mass black holes form when huge stars, way more massive than our Sun, collapse onto themselves when they run out of fuel. This causes an immense explosion, called a supernova. In the end, all that is left is a single point of infinite density squeezed into an infinitely small volume — a singularity.
Surrounding this singularity is a region called the event horizon — passing its boundaries is a one-way trip. Even light, with its immense speed of nearly 300,000 km/s is too slow to escape such mindboggling gravity.
We can make predictions about the event horizon. But the singularity? Inside it, space-time curves infinitely. Our laws of physics no longer hold. Are singularities portals to other galaxies or even other universes? Who knows.
And there’s more: Scientists believe there are supermassive black holes — millions or billions of times more massive than the Sun — lurking in the center of every galaxy, including our own. How these behemoths form is still a mystery.
Antimatter — Looking in the mirror
You remember electrons, protons and neutrons, right? They are what we call matter. But do you know they have twins?
Subatomic particles composing normal matter have corresponding antiparticles which compose — you guessed it — antimatter. They’re like normal particles, but with an opposite electrical charge.
Say hello to positrons, antiprotons and antineutrons.
Antimatter was created at the same time as matter after the Big Bang, but today, it’s very rare in the universe. This is having scientists scratching their heads.
Antimatter is produced in tiny quantities in huge particle accelerators.
When matter and antimatter interact, they annihilate which produces energy. This gave some brave souls the idea of creating antimatter fueled spaceships.
It makes sense — if 1kg of matter interacted with 1kg of antimatter, it would generate energy equivalent to 43 megatons of TNT. However, NASA gently reminded everybody that creating 1 milligram of antimatter would cost 100 billion dollars.
Dark matter — Intangible mass
While studying the Coma cluster of galaxies in the early 1930s, Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky noticed an anomaly. According to the quantity of visible mass, the galaxies were spinning way too fast and the cluster should have fallen apart.
He concluded there must exist some unseen mass that holds the galaxies bound together.
Zwicky dubbed this invisible mass “dark matter”.
He published his findings, but they went largely unnoticed. It was only three decades later, when an American astronomer Vera Rubin made similar discoveries, that the idea of an unobserved type of mass took off.
So, what exactly is dark matter? Well, we have no idea. We think that dark matter outweighs visible matter roughly six to one, making up about 27% of the universe.
The crazy fact is that visible matter — everything you’ve ever seen, touched or smelled — represents only 5% of the universe.
What we know so far is that dark matter does not interact with any form of electromagnetic radiation. This means it does not reflect, absorb or emit light. And this makes it really difficult to detect.
One of the most widely accepted theories for explaining dark matter is that it’s some kind of a particle we haven’t discovered yet. Stephen Hawking even suggested dark matter are primordial black holes born during the Bing Bang itself.
Either way, dark matter remains the biggest mystery of modern astronomy.
Dark energy — A peculiar force
You know how we’ve just said that visible matter is 5% of the universe and dark matter is 27%? What’s the rest then?
The remaining 68% is what we call “dark energy”.
In the 20th century, astronomers learned that the universe was expanding. The question was if it would expand forever or eventually collapse onto itself in what we call the Big Crunch.
But in 1998 something completely unexpected happened. Two independent groups of astronomers discovered that the universe is not only expanding — its expansion is actually accelerating.
The universe is expanding faster than billions of years ago. What’s more, the expansion was slowing down for the first 7 or 8 billion years after the Big Bang. But then, for some unknown reason, a mysterious force started dominating gravity and causing the expansion to speed up.
We named this puzzling force dark energy. It is distributed evenly throughout the universe, in space, as well as in time — its effect is not weakened as the universe expands.
To sum up: Dark matter is an attractive force that holds our universe together. Dark energy, on the other hand, is a repulsive force that drives the universe’s accelerating expansion. They are not the same thing, so don’t mix them up!
Quasars — Insatiable monsters
Remember those supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies we’ve mentioned in the beginning? Some of them power one of the brightest objects in the universe — active galactic cores called quasars.
Quasars — quasi-stellar radio sources — were first identified in the 1950s as sources of radio waves of unknown origin that resembled stars. Today we know they emit radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, not only radio waves, and that they are not stars. But the name stuck.
Black holes powering quasars are true monsters — millions or even billions of times more massive than our Sun. If black holes don’t emit any light how come quasars are so tremendously bright?
While some surrounding dust and gas fall into the black hole, other matter orbits the black hole and creates what we call an accretion disk.
When material in the accretion disk falls inward, this friction produces enormous amounts of energy in the form of heat and electromagnetic radiation. By the time this radiation reaches Earth, it is so redshifted that we detect it as radio waves.
The power radiated by quasars is gigantic — the most powerful quasars outshine by a thousand our entire Milky Way galaxy.
Most quasars exist in ancient galaxies and have been found billions of light-years away. Our own galaxy might have once hosted one, but it has long been silent.
In December 2017, the most distant quasar was found located more than 13 billion light-years from us. It is thought to have appeared only 690 million years after the Big Bang.
Quasars are fascinating because they act as time machines — since they are so far away, we see them as they were billions of years ago. This provides us with invaluable information about the youth of our universe and how galaxies evolved over time.
Fast Radio Bursts — Elusive signals
If you like mysteries, then Fast Radio Bursts — or FRBs — are right up your sleeve.
These odd flashes of radiation discovered in 2007 have no agreed-upon explanation.
They only last a few milliseconds, but they generate more energy than our Sun does in a century. Although extremely energetic at their source, once they reach our planet, they are weaker than a mobile phone signal.
Most FRBs come to us from distant galaxies, but in April 2020 first burst coming from our own Milky Way was detected. It was emitted by a known neutron star about 30,000 light-years away.
Much remains unknown about these sporadic bursts, but numerous theories exist. From rapidly rotating pulsars and black holes to alien intelligence, nothing is excluded.
Bottom line
Space is full of really awesome things, many of which remain a largely closed book. Black holes’ singularities, mysterious mass and energy, puzzling radio signals.
Scientists work tirelessly to unravel their secrets.
For the more we know about our universe, the better we understand our origins and consequently — ourselves.
Thank you for reading my story!
