18 Things Science Still Can't Explain

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18 Things That Science Still Can’t Explain</h4>

Over the years, decades and centuries, science has provided humankind with an endless library of knowledge. Of facts, figures, theories and ideas. And yet, it hasn’t yet conquered everything.

In this video, we’ll briefly encounter some of the biggest and most all encompassing problems that science has still to solve. Then, we’ll take an in-depth view at some mysteries of the solar system, in particular. And lastly, we’ll cast our net further out into space, as a whole, to analyze some of the wider universe’s most puzzling unknowns.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at eighteen things that science still can’t explain.

The Creation of the Universe 

This is a mystery that might prevail forever! How did the universe come into existence? Yes, we do have the Big Bang theory - which is a lot more than just a famous TV show. It stipulates that the universe expanded from a single point 13.8 billion years ago, leading to the creation of stars, galaxies, planets, and everything else that exists. But what was there before? What triggered the Big Bang? Why is there something rather than nothing? Some scientists think “quantum fluctuations” were responsible, but we really don’t know for sure. 

The Tao Hum

In this small north-central New Mexico town, some residents tell of a constant faint droning sound. It interferes with sleep and sometimes causes visitors to feel ill, getting more noticeable indoors and at night.  While researchers have investigated, no one was able to settle on a conclusive explanation. Some think people are experiencing Tinnitus, others think it’s man-made through industrial equipment, and some conspiracy theorists think it’s illegal government experiments or aliens. The phenomenon isn’t restricted to Tao either - with the Hum also cropping up in places like Auckland, New Zealand, and Windsor, Canada.

Odd Signals From Space

Radio waves are emitted by a wide variety of sources, including our own Sun. However, some radio signals from space have yet to be explained. One of the most notable was the Wow! Signal detected in 1977. Coming from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, it was unusual enough to make scientists wonder if they’d just heard from extraterrestrials. Then there are fast radio bursts – transient pulses from the far reaches of the galaxy, some of which repeat. Do they come from rotating neutron stars? Black holes? Or aliens? We still don’t know.  

Fingerprints 

Fingerprints act like a physical ID for each person. Everyone has one and they are all unique. But we didn’t evolve to have them in anticipation of solving murder cases. So what are they actually for? Turns out there isn’t one concrete answer. Some believe that these tiny ridges improve grip, like the ridges on a tire, or amplify vibrations to enhance touch perception. However, experiments for both sides have come up with fascinating, but not conclusive results. So we’re yet to know why we have such wrinkly thumbs. 

The Placebo Effect  

You know when someone says “fake it till you make it”? Turns out that statement might hold water. Experiments show that many symptoms improve when subjects are given fake treatments. Research on the placebo effect has found this mostly affects things like pain and nausea. Generally speaking, it doesn’t actually fix the underlying condition. But it’s still incredible that our minds have so much power over our bodies. While the phenomenon has been studied from both psychological and neurological perspectives, we still aren’t sure how the placebo effect works.  

UFOs

In June 2021, the US government released a long-awaited report that summarized information about UFO sightings. It arrived in the wake of viral videos that had been taken by Navy pilots and leaked to the public. Unfortunately, the report was inconclusive, stating just that while some UAPs - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - could be explained away, others remained mysteries, perhaps the result of secret Russian or Chinese tech. So we still don’t know for sure whether or not aliens are visiting Earth! If not, it leads to an even larger question: why haven’t we encountered signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life in the universe?  

Animal Migration

To survive seasonal changes, animals from around the world make arduous journeys to other, more suitable locales. But scientists still don’t know how they find their way. When humans struck out for new lands, they needed every navigational tool under the sun and sometimes still ended up lost. But a bunch of swallows can keep coming back to the same spot every year? Research has shown that some animals, such as pigeons, can sense the Earth’s magnetic field. But we still have a lot more questions, like: how many species possess this skill? How does it help them find such specific and faroff locations? We know the why, but we still don’t know the “how”.

Why We Dream

Dreams are a big part of our lives, so it’s shocking that they continue to baffle researchers. How do dreams work and why exactly do we have them? Some have stipulated that dreams assist in memory-processing, as the brain creates links and connections, hence why we might have dreams based on recent events or emotions! But then why do some dreams seem random? We aren’t really sure, and it opens the door to an even bigger question: why do we sleep at all? From an evolutionary standpoint, it leaves us vulnerable to predators! It boggles the mind, but regardless of these discoveries, we can all agree that getting cozy and having a nap is not something we’d want to give up.

Dark Matter 

It makes up 85% of all matter in the universe, but we have no idea what it is! We can infer that dark matter exists from various indirect means, but it doesn’t interact with electromagnetic radiation, so we can’t observe it directly. Like dark energy however, the universe wouldn’t be the same without it. Together, dark matter and dark energy make up 95% of all mass-energy in the universe … that’s a lot of stuff to know nothing about! Invisible forces and matter affect us in ways that we don’t even realize. When we finally figure out what dark matter is, it’ll be a giant leap in our understanding of how the universe works. 

How Life Began 

There’s a strong scientific consensus that evolution explains how different species have changed and separated over time. But how did life come to exist in the first place? How did biological processes emerge from non-living matter? Did all these molecules just fall into place through chance? While there are theories - with water often thought to hold the key - scientists can’t answer this one conclusively. When they do, it will help us understand where we came from, and know whether life is even possible anywhere else. It’s perhaps one of the most crucial questions we’ll ever answer, and life will forever change once we have the key to this mystery.

So, there’s your palate cleanser, to start! By now your brain should be nicely addled with all the unknowable complexities of existence. So, let’s next take a deeper dive into the solar system, in particular… to take a closer look at four unexpected discoveries on solar system planets.

Only a few decades ago, around the middle of the twentieth century, we were just beginning to physically travel into the solar system. But a lot has changed (and advanced) since then! Today, we’ve landed various spacecraft on the moon, and we’ve sent various machines to other planets. We’ve landed probes on asteroids, and even visited comets, in what has been quite the golden age for space exploration. Yet, despite all the knowledge we’ve undoubtedly gained, space never fails to surprise.

On Earth, the slow movement of the land beneath our feet is a continuous process. Sometimes, via earthquakes, it can cause huge amounts of destruction… but, ultimately, over the course of millions of years, it also leads to transformation. Ensuring that this world we call home never stays the same for too long. But so many of the other solar system planets have undergone massive change over their own histories, too, even if wholly Earth-like tectonics aren’t currently seen elsewhere. In the case of one planet, though - Mercury - we’ve come to realise something in particular. Today’s first unexpected discovery… that Mercury is shrinking.

Mercury’s nature best came to light through NASA’s MESSENGER space probe mission, which orbited the planet between March 2011 and April 2015. It conducted an extensive survey of the Mercurian surface, most notably revealing what NASA refers to as small, cliff-like structures all over it, called fault scarps. Further analysis of these features revealed to scientists the change that Mercury is going through. An already tiny planet compared to the rest of the solar system, Mercury has only around 300 miles worth of mantle and outer crust to play with… but we know that it’s shrinking anyway, because it’s believed that those fault scarps only form when the crust reacts to an inner core that’s reducing in size, which happens as the core cools down over millions of years. The true extent of Mercury’s shrinkage, however, is still debated. Around the time of the MESSENGER mission, scientists were suggesting about an eight-mile loss from its diameter. Since then, it’s been argued that the loss is less than that. But, either way, the future of Mercury becomes much more puzzling when we know that it’s actively reducing in size.

Our second unexpected discovery takes us much further away from the sun, past Venus, Earth, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt, to the gas giants of Jupiter and Saturn. Among other things, these planets host some of the largest and most violent planetary storms in the solar system. The Great Red Spot of Jupiter is one example, having been in the spotlight since it was first observed in the 1600s. And we do know of other, similar storms, too, detected on the surfaces of the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune. Much like the storms we’re accustomed to on Earth, these space weather events almost always appear to be circular or spiral in shape. In an unexpected twist, however, astronomers know of a completely different shape of storm over Saturn’s north pole. Thanks to its six distinct sides, it’s widely known as Saturn’s Hexagon. 

Saturn’s Hexagon was first discovered in 1987 by one David Godfrey, an astronomer who was working on data taken from the Voyager mission six years earlier, in 1981. High-resolution images of this unusual atmospheric feature weren’t available until decades later, though, when NASA’s Cassini mission orbited Saturn for thirteen years between 2004 and 2017. Now, we can see with clarity just how bizarre this Saturnian structure really is… but is there any explanation for it?

Well, there have been various studies held, but really this particular storm remains something of a mystery. Many hypotheses centre on how the swirling vortex clearly seen at the Hexagon’s centre could be interacting with the surrounding atmosphere of Saturn as a whole… with various models tested over the years to show that, weird as it may seem, a hexagonal shape is possible.  Meanwhile, debate is also ongoing over how deep the storm really is, with some contending that it’s hundreds of miles deep, while others claim it could be many thousands of miles from top to bottom. One thing that is for sure is that this is one storm you do not want to be caught in the middle of!

But, moving onto our third unexpected discovery, and we of course know that, aside from the Hexagon, Saturn is more classically known for its iconic rings. We also know that over recent decades we’ve confirmed ring systems around some of the other solar system planets, too, including all the remaining outer planets - Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. Nevertheless, it came as a surprise when astronomers working at the National Observatory in Brazil, in 2014, found another ring system… but this time around a much smaller object. Around an asteroid named Chariklo.

Orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus, Chariklo is the first non-planetary object confirmed to have its own ring system. It was spotted during a study led by one Felipe Braga-Ribas, during which this unusual cosmic formation was actually only seen for a few seconds - when it passed in front of a distant star. Chariklo and its rings caused that star to briefly dim, and scientists were able to discern from their readings that while the asteroid itself was about 150 miles wide, it also hosted two distinct rings - an inner ring that’s about four miles wide, and an outer one that’s around two miles wide. Much like the rings of Saturn, which are thought by many to be the remnants of a one-time moon, it’s been hypothesized that the fragments around Chariklo may also have once formed a larger, more complete astronomical body. Although, we can’t yet be certain.

Our fourth unexpected discovery is also wrapped up in one of the most long-awaited discoveries yet to be made in all of science: alien life. While we may not have had huge success in our search for aliens to this point, it could be that one discovery on a Saturnian moon ends up changing everything. For once, we’re not here referring to Titan, the largest and typically most popular of Saturn’s moons. Rather, we’re interested in another of the 80-plus natural satellites that orbit this farthest gas giant, the sixth largest of all Saturn’s moons: Enceladus. 

Though it was discovered as far back as 1789, by William Herschel, Enceladus remained a mostly unknown world until, again, the Cassini probe. Beginning in 2005, it performed multiple flybys of this most enigmatic of moons, revealing to the world its spectacularly icy surface and securing its reputation as the most reflective body in the solar system. Despite the Cassini mission ending in 2017, however, surprising details continue to be reported from the data it collected.

For example, a 2019 study by a team at the Free University of Berlin, led by Doctor Nozair Khawaja, confirmed the existence of organic compounds on Enceladus, similar to those on Earth that are vital for life. This is potentially a hugely significant discovery, with Doctor Khawaja explaining that; “If the conditions are right, these molecules coming from the deep ocean of Enceladus could be on the same reaction pathway as we see here on Earth”. The key thing here is that Enceladus is showing more and more that it hosts the ingredients for amino acids, which are the building blocks for life as we know it. In a statement at the time, Khawaja continued that; “we don’t yet know if amino acids are needed for life beyond Earth, but finding the molecules that form amino acids is an important piece of the puzzle”. Today, thanks to studies like this, Enceladus is now seen by many as top-of-the-list when it comes to potential homes for extraterrestrial life.

The discovery itself was made possible thanks to state-of-the-art instruments onboard Cassini, which measured the ice and vapor emitted in cryovolcanic plumes, shooting out from Enceladus’ surface. The findings suggest complex, hydrothermal environments on Enceladus… and, maybe, conditions similar to what we see in the deep ocean vents here on Earth. Perhaps, then, this far-off moon, orbiting the ever-mysterious planet of Saturn, could also be considered the most Earth-like other world discovered in the solar system so far. Only time will tell, but the realization that it might be has caused the eyes of the scientific world to look in an all new direction.

Clearly, the solar system holds many mysteries. And, of course, there are many, many more to consider, as well. For the final part of this video, we’re casting our net even wider, to look at four more unexplained things that scientists have seen in space.

In space, there are some things that we’ve never actually seen, but that we know should be there. Dark matter, for example, which we know must exist, but only due to the effects it has on the universe around it - not because we look into the sky and instantly see it. On the other hand, however, there are phenomena that have been seen (or heard) even though science says they shouldn't really be there. So, what gives? 

In the twenty-first century, we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to state-of-the-art space and science initiatives. Whether it’s the Hubble Telescope, which takes high definition pictures of the universe … the Spitzer Space Telescope, which captures infrared radiation from obscure space structures… or the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which provides X-ray images of space in all its glory… it all helps to improve our knowledge. And those are just the predominantly NASA ventures! Nowadays, while NASA is still the biggest and best-funded space agency out there, there are various others that are hot on their heels - including China’s CNSA, India’s ISRO, and Europe’s ESA. Regardless of who’s running the experiments, though, they’ve helped scientists to find better-than-ever answers to some of our oldest questions, including how old the universe is and how it formed in the first place. However, sometimes the cutting-edge equipment sees things that can’t quite be explained. Things that don’t quite fit with conventional theories. 

In 1912 Victor Hess made the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of Cosmic Rays when he observed radiation entering Earth from outside the atmosphere. Cosmic rays are charged particles that can form in the sun, but also out of other especially energetic events in space. For the most part, researchers have a good understanding of them… but Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (or, UHECRs) are a different ball game, and remain a mystery. And, in 1991, astronomers at the University of Utah recorded a cosmic ray so powerful that it equaled the kinetic energy of a baseball travelling at sixty miles an hour - an incomprehensible measure for a single atomic nucleus. 

This was so shocking and unexpected, in fact, that the UHECR in question was nicknamed the Oh-My-God particle. Researchers have no idea where this and particles like it could be coming from, so it could be that the OMG came from outside or inside the Milky Way… but, regardless, we also don’t know what caused it. Really, though, it’s more than just not knowing what event could have caused these particles, because by some measures they shouldn’t even be possible. Chiefly, we don’t know how protons can even reach the speeds of the Oh-My-God Particle. Protons travelling above what’s known as the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit (which the OMG was) should naturally lose speed by interacting with the cosmic microwave background… but the OMG wasn’t doing that. It’s been said, then, that the Oh-My-God Particle seems to break the laws of special relativity. And scientists simply can’t explain it.

While particle science is a relatively new field, however, we’ve been studying the stars since ancient times. And yet Star KIC 8462852, also known as Boyajian’s Star (after the astronomer Tabetha S. Boyajian) has been widely called the most mysterious star in the universe. Even the world’s leading experts have been stumped by it. The star itself has been known about for centuries, but in 2015 it was Boyajian who first noted how strange the light coming off of it was. For one, the star experiences regular dimming of up to twenty-two percent - a massive change, and one that can’t possibly be caused by a nearby planet, as it’s said that even a planet the size of Jupiter would barely cover one percent of the light. Additionally, the periods of dimming have no discernible pattern… and they come from different parts of the star, so it can’t possibly be a single, large blockade that’s causing it. What’s stranger still is that, by using archived data, astronomers have noticed that Boyajian’s Star has been growing dimmer overall, too, with the changes taking place over just decades - rather than the millions of years we might expect. 

Many theories have been put forward, but none can truly explain every abnormality seen here… which has led some to seriously consider whether alien megastructures could be at play, affecting the light as they pass? But the most prominent theory is that it’s dust clouds that are causing the dimming… although the prospect of cosmic dust brings about other questions, too. Stars with dust around them are usually younger stars, but Boyajian’s Star is quite old. So, why’s it bucking the trend? Plus, the dust should have blown away by now, but it remains, so it must be replenishing - but how? And, still, it’s been said that the amount of dust needed for this explanation to work is a cloud about the size of the moon. Not impossible but, again, unusual. So, it’s little wonder that astronomers continue to monitor Boyajian’s Star so closely. 

One thing that astronomers have on their side with stars, however, is that they at least are relatively simple to track… while some other objects pass by so fast that we can barely see them. That’s what happened with ‘Oumuamua, the first observed object that came from outside our solar system. Unfortunately, when it was spotted in 2017, astronomers had only a small time frame to view the infamous object before it flew past Earth and back out toward the outer planets’ orbits, and beyond. As such, ‘Oumuamua was notoriously tricky to classify and remains mostly unexplained. 

It may have been a comet, but no cometary tail was recorded. It could have been an asteroid, except it gave off ten times more light than asteroids usually do. According to the Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, it could have been a passing alien spacecraft… while there’s yet another theory that ‘Oumuamua comes from another world in another star system, but a world that’s not unlike Pluto, and that it’s made of nitrogen ice. The Yale astronomer Gregory Laughlin, however, has noted that “none of the theories are a slam-dunk”. The apparent uniqueness of ‘Oumuamua is what’s caused most of the confusion and debate. All theories (except Loeb’s) quickly suggest that we should be seeing many more objects just like it in space… but we aren’t. And now that it’s no longer close enough to us, we may never know for sure exactly what that cigar-shaped something was.

Finally, though, we know that not all the strangeness in space is seen with our eyes. Some of it is heard, in a manner of speaking. We of course also know that space is a vacuum that sound itself can’t travel through… but radio waves can, and a strange case of that is what NASA “heard” in 2006. A team had sent up its ARCADE machine - with the acronym ARCADE standing for Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission - to measure radio signals coming from the cosmos. They had expected that detecting the signals might’ve been difficult, but actually it was easy… as one came through loud and clear, and six times louder than it should have been. The signal was swiftly dubbed the space roar. To date, no one knows where it comes from and, indeed, it appears to be coming from all angles… but again there are theories, largely split into two camps; the generally deemed less likely idea that it’s from within the Milky Way, and the generally believed more likely theory that it’s from outside our galaxy. Slightly more specifically, researchers believe it could be a by-product of the earliest stars in the universe, or that it may have originated from a large cluster of different galaxies… but the data is by no means clear. More than fifteen years later, then, and this one, strange measurement remains a mystery. Another unsolved problem in astrophysics. 

Despite the mysterious nature of all these cases, however, they’re still extremely important. They force us to fix existing theories, and to rethink what we thought we knew… and that’s all part of improving our knowledge on how the universe works. No scientist or astronomer would ever claim that we know it all already, and as our technology improves you can bet that there will be more such anomalies uncovered in the coming years and decades!

So, what’s your verdict? Which of these inexplicable scientific oddities is your brain most bamboozled by? Which will you probably be thinking about for the rest of the day? And which would you rather not think about again??

For now, while it’s true that science is stacked with mysterious phenomena and unknown events, perhaps we’re best thinking of these seeming hurdles… as opportunities. From the Placebo Effect to the Space Roar; from Saturn’s Hexagon to Dark Matter, there are endless questions that still require answers… and the race is on to find them!