The Biggest Scientific Mysteries Yet To Be Solved (Part I)

Every time a scientific discovery is made, especially in Physics or Astronomy, it really excites me to know that we've gotten one step closer to understanding the nature of reality.

There are so many mysteries that we have yet to solve that it boggles the mind when one starts thinking about them. The mysteries are themselves so deep and complex that your mind will literally hurt if you spend too much time thinking about them.

That's why it has taken decades for even scientists and researchers, who I believe are the brightest minds of the human populace, to at least think about and seek answers to these problems and to formulate theories trying to explain what they could be.

It is very interesting to talk about these mysteries even as lay people because it encourages all sort of creative thinking. So, here are some of the biggest questions facing science.

What Happens At The Centre of A Black Hole?

This is a big one and it looks almost impossible to answer right now. Only a few weeks ago, humanity managed to take the first photo of a black hole serving as a direct evidence of existance of one. In fact, several decades ago, scientists were not even sure whether or not black holes even exist.

Although progress is being made and we are getting to know more and more about how a black hole works, it will be quite difficult to know for certain what happens at its core. The reason is simple. Nothing ever comes out of a black hole thanks to its insanely strong gravitational pull.

What Is Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

When we look up at the night sky, we see thousands of stars and we know that these form only a tiny section of what is out there. There can be hundreds of billions of stars in a galaxy and scientists estimate that there are around 2 trillion such galaxies. So, you can imagine the scale of things at a cosmic level.

But what if I told you that all of this, forms only about 4% of the universe. That's right! The rest of the 96% of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy and we simply don't know anything about them. Even their names are just placeholders for the lack of better terms. We haven't even been able to observe them with all our advanced instruments.

How Did Life Originate?

This one relates directly to us and is a biggie. We have a rough idea about when life began (about 3.5 billion years ago) although that may change with new evidence, but we don't quite understand how it began.

We know that life started as a single celled organism but we still can't figure out how a bunch of non-living elements (oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc) came together to create a self-sustaining, reproducing system that was 'alive'. How did the elements "know" what to do? We also can't be certain whether life actually originated on Earth or was brought here from somewhere else.

Are We Alone?

I am sure this is a question that all of us have asked in our lifetime. The Earth is teeming with all sorts of lifeform and yet when we look at other planets and star systems or even in space, for signs of a lifeform, we just can't seem to find any.

Mars is thought to have harboured some form of life billions of years ago and yet we haven't been able to find evidence of any sort despite so much research that has happened there. That is not to say we won't ever find it. The universe is so huge that it is statistically impossible that we are the only living beings to exist.