Rewriting Cosmology

As human society develops, we learn more and more about the world outside of Earth. But the more we learn, the more likely we are to overturn what we already know.

For example, the radius of the solar system has been magnified countless times, from the first beyond Neptune to the outer layers of the heliosphere to the Oort cloud, as to how the boundary of the Sun is defined.

Not only that, but 6.4 billion kilometers away in space, there is a matter far beyond human imagination.

Oort cloud

Space 6.4 billion kilometers away: a strange discovery

In 2006, NASA launched a probe called New Horizons, or New Horizons as it is commonly known, in Florida. The mission of New Horizons was to explore Pluto, which we kicked out of the planetary race, as well as its moons, and to explore the Kuiper Belt.

Since its launch, New Horizons has flown past Pluto in July 2015 and will continue to explore objects in the Kuiper Belt.

During the New Horizons survey, humans were able to see Pluto's landscape for the first time and discovered the existence of two additional moons. When New Horizons flew past Pluto, it also continued its photography work. But when it flew 6.4 billion kilometers out into space from Earth, the view it sent back surprised scientists.

In the photos from 6.4 billion kilometers away, New Horizons "saw" a very bright space. It's not unusual to see light everywhere on Earth, but even a bright sight a billion kilometers away would be called an anomaly by scientists.

When talking about the birth of life on Earth, it was mentioned that the right temperature is one of the factors that give birth to life and that the temperature is influenced by the distance between the planet and the star. Normally, the farther away from the star, the less light it receives, and the lower the temperature it feels. Thus the surface temperature of Neptune, the farthest from Earth, is only minus 218°C, which also indicates that Neptune is severely underlit.

However, farther away from Neptune, it can be described as bright. What is it that allows such a glow in space 6.4 billion kilometers away?

The presence of dark matter

This question did not bother scientists for long, and they soon attributed the cause to dark matter. As the name implies, dark matter is "invisible" matter.

In physics, the matter is the food and field that makes up all objects in the universe, and it has its mass and energy that can be observed or predicted by theory.

Dark matter, on the other hand, is a type of matter that scientists have speculated cannot be "seen" after observing phenomena in space.

In 1922, the astronomer Kaptain suggested that the existence of dark matter around stars could be inferred from the motion of the star system, but by 1932, Oort had not obtained conclusive results based on this idea.

Later on, Zwicky again suggested the presence of dark matter in galaxy clusters by spectral red, and that the mass was more than a hundred times that of the visible matter in galaxies. Smith, who observed the Virgo cluster, was also positive about this idea.

However, the "dark matter" theory was not taken seriously because dark matter could not be observed and there were not enough arguments to verify it.

Although some scientists have since speculated about the existence of dark matter in the universe, the real evidence was given by Rubin and Ford, who observed the rotation of the stars in the Andromeda Nebula in 1970.

They used spectroscopic measurements to calculate the relationship between the rotational velocities and distances of the outer stars and concluded that the velocities of the outer galaxies did not change, a solution that contradicts the law of gravity.

If the mass of the galaxy is concentrated in the visible stars, then the velocity of the outer stars should be inversely proportional to the distance, but the conclusion is that the velocity is constant. This conclusion implies that there is a large amount of visible matter in the galaxies, whose masses are far from the sum of the luminous stars.

Since the 1980s, the theory of the existence of "dark matter" has been widely accepted. Although its properties and mass cannot be measured until now, there is plenty of evidence for it in the universe.

The fact that dark matter exists but cannot be "seen" makes it too much of a mystery in itself. Scientists believe that dark matter is like the glue that binds all matter in the universe together. It does not absorb or radiate light, so it cannot be seen, but it can release its energy through certain actions.

That is why, after a strange sighting from 6.4 billion kilometers away, scientists will think that it is the dark matter at work.

Dark matter and the significance of studying the universe

What is the significance of the existence of dark matter?

Space is a near vacuum except for the stars, and only a small amount of interplanetary matter exists. It would seem that there is nothing but interplanetary matter, but when the concept of dark matter emerged, the proportion of matter in space directly refreshed our perception.

In the universe, only 5% of the matter is observable, while the percentage of dark matter is 26.8%. This comparison then indicates that there is a large amount of dark matter in places that we cannot see.

Could this provide us with another way of thinking? Since there is invisible dark matter, are there celestial bodies made of dark matter or even life? In that case, a world full of dark matter would be similar to a parallel world that is developing with us in a place we cannot see.

If this is true, it is no wonder that the discovery of New Horizons might be able to rewrite the cosmological argument. In addition to dark matter, there is dark energy similar to it, which also does not absorb light, reflect it or radiate it. However, dark energy can accelerate the expansion of the universe by swallowing matter.

However, the role of dark energy is still debated in the scientific community because it is more nebulous. But this also provides us with another way of thinking, even if it is a matter, we cannot just "see" it to observe it. Perhaps there are still many things in the universe that have not been discovered by humans.

A strange photo has made scientists understand more about the solar system, but it has also made them understand less about it. What is the universe made of? And where did it come from? This is still a long way to go for mankind.