Buzz
I usually compile lists of unsolved mysteries with minimal scientific backing, like hauntings. These stories are enjoyable and may give you a chill or two, but in my opinion, the greatest unsolved mysteries are about things we know to exist, yet they challenge everything we understand to be possible.
As a scientist, I find it absolutely intriguing when I encounter phenomena we can't explain, despite the vast knowledge available to us today. The majority of these real mysteries reside in outer space: What exactly is dark matter and dark energy? Is there life elsewhere in the universe? This list explores 10 scientific mysteries hidden in the night sky. Enjoy!
10. The Star That Shouldn’t Be There
The star in question is SDSS J102915 +172927. Personally, I prefer stars with simpler names, but these complex ones serve a purpose – they usually represent coordinates indicating where the star can be located in the sky.
In 2011, a team of European astronomers discovered this star in the Leo constellation. It’s a relatively small star, about 80% the size of our sun, and is estimated to be around 13 billion years old. Considering the universe is thought to be around 13.7 billion years old, this star is considered one of the oldest still-surviving stars. Nothing extraordinary about the star itself, except that according to all our scientific theories, it shouldn’t even exist. It’s composed of 99.99993% hydrogen and helium, elements too light to form a star by themselves. When input into any star formation simulation, the results consistently show that such a star shouldn’t be possible. Astronomers remain puzzled as to how this star could have formed without the aid of heavier elements – research is ongoing.
9. The Star Surrounded by Spirals
Located 400 light-years away from Earth in the Lupus constellation, SAO 206462 caught the attention of astronomers in 2011. What intrigued them wasn’t the star itself, but the spiral arms surrounding it. Spirals are common around galaxies, but it’s the first time scientists have observed one rotating around a star. The cause remains a mystery. A popular theory suggests gravity from forming planets, encircled in dust around the star, might be responsible for the spirals. However, without detecting actual planets, this theory remains unconfirmed and continues to be an enigma.
8. The Ever-Young Star
Messier 4 is a globular cluster located approximately 7,200 light-years from Earth. If galaxies had lifespans like humans, this one would be considered ancient at 12.2 billion years old. For those unfamiliar with astronomy, it’s believed that all galaxies eventually evolve into globular clusters once they’ve exhausted all their gas and dust, the ingredients for star formation. This means that the stars within these clusters are generally in the later stages of their lives. However, in September 2012, a team in Chile observed a star within this galaxy that was unusually rich in lithium.
While lithium is not a rare element in stars, it typically burns off during the early stages of a star’s life, within the first few billion years. As the majority of stars in this cluster are around 10 billion years old, finding a star still rich in lithium was an extraordinary discovery. It’s akin to finding a teenager in a nursing home – it just doesn’t seem to belong. Scientists speculate that the star may have found a way to replenish its lithium, preventing it from aging. This has earned it the nickname “the fountain of youth star.” How the star manages to replenish its lithium remains a mystery, baffling astronomers to this day.
7. The Stars That Survived a Black Hole
This enigma involves millions of stars, not just one. Located a mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own. Those with an Apple computer running Lion will have a good visual reference for what this galaxy looks like. At its heart lies a supermassive black hole, a colossal vacuum with such force that not even light can escape its grasp.
In 2005, the Hubble Space Telescope focused on the galaxy’s core and spotted a blue, pancake-shaped disk spinning perilously close to the black hole. Further examination revealed that this was no ordinary hot dust, but the glow of millions of young, blue stars. These stars are traveling at an astonishing 2.3 million miles per hour, fast enough to orbit Earth at the equator in just 40 seconds. The puzzling part? According to our current understanding of tidal forces near black holes, these stars and the gas that formed them should have been ripped apart by the black hole's immense gravity. The mystery of how they remain intact despite their close orbit remains unsolved.
6. The Siamese Star?
Swift J1822.3-1606 is a unique type of star, classified as a neutron star, located approximately 20,000 light-years away in the Ophiuchus constellation. A star typically ends its life in one of three ways: as a white dwarf (for smaller stars like our sun), as a neutron star (for significantly larger stars), or as a black hole (for the largest of them all). The formation of neutron stars and black holes follows some of the most powerful explosions in the universe – supernovas.
There are several kinds of neutron stars: a magnetar, which boasts the strongest magnetic fields known to man, and a pulsar, which emits beams of electromagnetic radiation from its poles (somewhat akin to a lighthouse). For years, astronomers believed that these stars could only belong to one of these two classes, never both. But in 2011, Swift was found to possess properties of both types. It became only the second star ever discovered with such dual characteristics, the first having been identified just months before.
The puzzle? Astronomers remain stumped as to how a star can display characteristics of both types. While the discovery of two such stars in recent years suggests they are more common than previously thought, the mystery of how they possess dual properties remains unsolved.
5. The Planet That Should Have Been Swallowed
Wasp 18, located 330 light-years away in the Phoenix constellation, is about 25% more massive than our sun. However, the real enigma lies not in the star itself, but in the object that orbits it.
In 2009, Coel Hellier from Keele University made a groundbreaking discovery that Wasp-18 had a planet. Named Wasp-18b, this planet is slightly larger than Jupiter but possesses around 10 times its mass. It is just shy of the mass required to become a brown dwarf, a failed star. What baffles astrophysicists is that this planet orbits its star from less than 2 million miles away, whereas Mercury is almost 36 million miles from the Sun.
Wasp-18b orbits so close to its parent star that it completes a full orbit in less than 23 hours, with a surface temperature of around 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 Celsius). Despite this proximity, the planet has managed to survive for roughly 680 million years. Given the mass of its parent star, it should have long since been consumed. The question remains: how did this planet form and sustain itself in an environment where planets were thought to be unable to survive?
4. The Stardust That Found Its Way Home
PSR B1257 +12, a remnant of a supernova explosion, was never thought to harbor any planets. Yet, a whole solar system was discovered, with three planets and a dwarf planet orbiting this pulsar. Assuming such systems were common, scientists began searching other pulsars for planets, but only one other pulsar was found to have a single planet orbiting it, revealing just how rare these systems are.
The formation of planets around such a pulsar remains poorly understood. The most widely accepted theory suggests that, much like our solar system, the planets formed from a planetary disk that once surrounded the star. However, the supernova explosion should have hurled any planetary material far out into space. The mystery lies in how the gas and dust returned to the pulsar, became tidally locked, and accumulated enough material for the formation of four planets.
3. The Vanishing Stardust
Located 450 light years away in the Centaurus constellation, TYC 8241 2652 is a star roughly the same size as our sun but much younger, only about 10 million years old, compared to our 4.5 billion-year-old sun. From 1983 to 2008, astronomers observed a bright ring of dust around this star, thinking it might offer clues about planet formation similar to our own solar system's beginnings. However, when the star was checked in early 2009, astronomers were stunned: the once-glowing disk of dust had disappeared entirely. No planets were left behind, and no traces of the dust's disappearance could be found. It had simply vanished. In response, astronomer Carl Melis remarked, “We don’t have a really satisfactory explanation to address what happened around this star.”
2. The Rogue Planet
CFBDSIR 2149 – 0403 is a brown dwarf, a celestial body that failed to initiate nuclear fusion in its core and, as a result, never developed into a true star. Although it is often categorized as an AB Doradus star due to its size and mass, some classify it as a gas giant. If this is the case, it would be a planet that has no parent star, a concept that has been theorized but only occasionally observed.
Only four possible rogue planets have been identified, with the one in question being the closest to Earth at an estimated 130 light years away. This planet’s motion is influenced by other stars in the AB Doradus star group, but contrary to popular belief, rogue planets do not travel in a straight line through space. The exact mechanism that allows a planet to become rogue remains an unsolved mystery.
1. The Disco Star
V838 Monocerotis, located in the Monoceros constellation approximately 20,000 light years from Earth, was once regarded as one of the universe’s largest stars.
In 2002, the star suddenly experienced a massive surge in brightness. Initially, scientists believed it to be a typical nova – an explosion caused when a white dwarf star accumulates excess hydrogen gas from a companion star, triggering a massive eruption. The star faded after a couple of weeks, which was in line with expectations, and was cataloged as a nova.
However, less than a month later, the star flared up once again. The interval between the explosions was too brief for two separate nova events, leading astronomers to investigate further. What they discovered was unexpected: there was no white dwarf. Instead, the star had undergone a self-triggered eruption, and it continued to brighten and dim several times over the following months. At its peak, the star shone a million times brighter than our sun, becoming one of the most dazzling objects in the sky.
While stars typically brighten slightly before they die, measurements revealed that this star was only a few million years old, a mere infant by stellar standards. After the eruptions, the Hubble Telescope captured an image showing a vast cloud of gas and debris rushing away from the star. One theory is that the star might have collided with something invisible, such as another star or planet, though scientists are still struggling to explain this decade-old enigma.
