The first image of the black hole is cool but what else haven’t we seen yet?
The night sky has more secrets that are yet to be seen by mankind
1) Dark Matter
You literally can’t see this one! (despite the fact 27% of the universe is made out of it) Dark matter is all around us. But scientists are still trying to detect them because they exhibit no electromagnetic force (emf) and they emit no light.
The only way we can feel the normal matter is because of the electrons in the matter repel the electrons in our own skin. Since the dark matter exhibits no electric charge, they simply pass through our bodies.
But we do know they exist because their effects can be detected by gravity! Scientists can detect how much matter is present in a galaxy by the motion of the stars and it turns out something has been deeply influencing the motion of the stars but they remain undetectable by anything other than their gravitational effect. This led to the discovery of dark matter’s existence and in recent years we even discovered a galaxy called Dragonfly 44 which is made up of 99.99% Dark Matter
2) Dark Energy
If you are familiar with the big bang theory, the universe is formed by a huge explosion which pushed particles away at a really high speed. Even now, the universe keeps expanding but it’s actually accelerating instead of slowing down. Theoretically, the gravitational force of attraction should bring the universe close together and eventually the expansion should stop leading to the big crunch. However, there is some form of energy which is actually accelerating the expansion which we haven’t been able to understand yet.
This unknown form of energy which is called Dark Energy actually makes up 67% of our whole universe. Other than its existence which is accelerating the cosmic expansion, we know nothing about it and several interesting theories have been proposed to justify the existence of this mysterious energy.
The normal matter which we know of, only makes up about 5% of the whole universe!
3) The Great Attractor
The universe has been expanding since the big bang and has been growing at a rate of 2.2 million kilometers per hour. Thanks to dark energy, the expansion is supposed to be even across the whole universe. However, it turns out our milky way galaxy isn’t moving at that speed but it is actually moving towards something else. Not just us, everything within a few hundred and millions of light years from us are also moving towards the same direction.
Enough gravity can actually combat the cosmic expansion and something in the Laniakea Supercluster (which is home to many galaxies including our home) has been attracting us along with the other galaxies in the supercluster. Scientists call this gravitational anomaly as “The Great Attractor” and it is expected to have a mass of about a quadrillion suns.
As interesting as it may be, we are, unfortunately, unable to see this gravitational anomaly because it lies in the Zone of Avoidance — the region in the sky hidden from us due to the interstellar dust and stars from our own Milkyway galaxy.
4) Binary Black Holes
What is cooler than one black hole? Two black holes orbiting each other! The black holes may be formed due to various reasons such as high mass binary star systems or galactic mergers. We are yet to confirm an active binary black hole system in the universe, however, we do know their existence since binary black holes eventually merge producing an immense amount of gravitational waves which can be detected by our technology.
So far, we have detected 10 binary black hole mergers and two possible active binary black hole systems. We might soon take a picture of this one!
There’s so much more!
We have only scratched the surface of the secrets of our night sky. There’s still so much out there we are yet to explore. We are still looking at ways to study the exotic matter, gravitons and we are still yet to confirm the existence of hypothetical objects such as the white holes.
Never a dull moment to look at the night sky after all!
