8 mysteries that science cannot yet explain

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Why does the brightness of a distant star change, where did the hole in the Egyptian pyramid come from and where did the Ninth Planet go?

1. Why were porpoises buried in the Middle Ages

In 2017, on the tiny islet of Capel, Hue's house, off the coast of Guernsey in the English Channel, was found 1.

2. the grave of the 15th century. More specifically, it was excavated between 1416 and 1490.

The burial was located near the ruins of a small skete that once belonged to medieval monks. They visited the island to find solitude for prayer. The grave was built in compliance with all medieval funeral traditions.

But it was not a man who was buried there, but a porpoise.

For your reference: this is not the guinea pig that is sour in your cage on the windowsill - it will be brought to Europe from South America only in the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries. The porpoise is such a distant relative of the toothed whale dolphin. Here.

It is generally known that the inhabitants of the coastal regions of Europe in those days (and sometimes in our days) sometimes caught and eaten porpoises. Their meat was considered a delicacy. So, perhaps the monks just found the beast washed up by the low tide and ate it. But why bury the bones so carefully in a grave that is no different from a human one - perfectly symmetrical, with smooth walls and rounded corners?

It was suggested that the people of God arranged for her to be buried near their skete for some religious or mystical purposes. True, it is absolutely unclear which ones. Did medieval monks consider the porpoise a sacred animal?

There is also an option that this is not a grave, but a kind of food supply. The monks could not cope with a pork weighing under a hundredweight in one sitting and decided to bury the half-eaten. Perhaps they even covered it with salt so that the meat was stored longer. But then why bother so much, digging a perfectly flat hole?

By the way, the skeleton of a sailor from the 1500s or 1600s was somehow discovered on this island. And he's … armless. Where the limbs have gone is also a mystery covered in darkness. But this is unlikely to have anything to do with porpoises.

In general, so far archeology cannot give an answer that these monks on Capele Island had the Hue house then going on.

2. What a tullimonster beast

Take a look at this picture. Do you think this is the fruit of a sick fantasy of some artist painting in the fantasy genre? But nothing of the kind. This is a tullimonster - a representative of aquatic chordates that really existed 1.

2. in the Carboniferous period.

Named after the discoverer and fossil collector Francis Tully. Plowed the river expanses of the modern state of Illinois 311-307 million years ago, then happily died out, apparently, leaving no heirs.

Imagine this krakozyabra: a mouth with protruding jaws on a long trunk that bends in half, like a knee, only with the joint down. Two eyes on protruding stems, like some snail. The body is like a cuttlefish, fish fins on the belly and a diamond-shaped tail fin, like that which modern squid species are equipped with.

Here you can start calling the witcher for help in panic, but if you add to this description the size of the "Tully monster" - from 8 to 35 centimeters - the monster becomes not so scary, but even charming in its own way.

But despite the fact that the tullimonster was well preserved, scientists had certain problems with him.

It is absolutely incomprehensible what kind of animal this is. At first, it was attributed to the relative of modern jawless lampreys. Then they doubted this and decided that it would be better to send the tullimonstra to the mollusks company. The unfortunate fossil was tried on for both vertebrates and invertebrates.

It was also suggested that he was generally an arthropod, only without legs. But no traces of chitin were found in the remains of the tullimonster, so this version had to be abandoned. Or maybe he is generally a relative of vetulicolium worms?

Be that as it may, the place of this little monster on the family tree of terrestrial living creatures has yet to be clarified.

3. What's going on with the star Tabby

Usually stars periodically become brighter and dimmer by about 1% of their luminosity. This is absolutely normal: this is how all self-respecting luminaries do.

But the star Tabby (KIC 8462852) located 1.

2. About 1,500 light-years from Earth, a special case. Her brightness jumps up or down by as much as 22%. At the same time, the intervals of luminosity change are irregular, and scientists are still puzzling over what is the reason for the mysterious phenomenon.

Some astronomers have argued that the star may be surrounded by some kind of anomalous dust cloud that occasionally causes such eclipses. Others suggest that some kind of alien megastructure, such as the Dyson Sphere, is built around Tabby.

It was allegedly created by an overdeveloped civilization in order to collect the energy of its sun - a kind of orbital energy collector the size of a planetary system. Still others say that the star twinkles by itself due to incomprehensible processes taking place in its depths.

It is not yet possible to confirm or refute these theories directly - you yourself understand that it is not close to fly there. Humanity is left with observations - maybe soon astronomers will still figure out why Tabby is different from other stars.

4. Where did the huge cavity in the Cheops pyramid come from?

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of the seven wonders of the world that has survived to this day. This is a very impressive structure. And despite the fact that the pyramid has already been well studied, it still conceals many mysteries. For example, where did the large internal cavity under the northern slope come from?

In 2017, a team of researchers using muon radiography discovered 1.

2. in the pyramid of Cheops, a previously unknown cavity, and a hefty one. It is approximately 30 to 47 meters in length and 8 meters in height - it is not more accurate to say yet. Located above the corridor leading to the burial chamber of Pharaoh Khufu. It was called the Great Void.

Egyptologists do not understand what this huge hole in the pyramid does.

Perhaps this is an engineering solution to relieve pressure on the ceiling of Khufu's tomb. Or the floor in the cavity was used as a ramp during the construction of the pyramid to lift heavy blocks up. Is there a secret room there?

Or did the pharaoh's enterprising contractors save money on construction and simply did not bring the limestone to where it was supposed to be according to the original project?

The situation is complicated by the fact that it is not so easy to get into the Great Void, and the Cairo authorities do not allow scientists to make a hole in the Cheops pyramid. What do you think, smart guys, this is a historical heritage and a tourist site, and you drill it, so the whole pyramid can be turned into cheese. Here we must act more delicately.

They planned to enlighten the void with muons again, but the research was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. So in the near future, we are unlikely to find out if there is something interesting in it.

5. Why did the Cambrian explosion happen?

The first primitive organisms appeared on the planet 3.8 billion years ago. Then, in the period called Archaeus, life on Earth was not enough. Well, some unicellular bacteria and algae swam in their sour-salty ocean and did not particularly shine. Boredom, in general.

But then something happened. Somewhere 540 million years ago, organisms decided: the time has come, and how they began to evolve, that they still cannot stop. In the Cambrian, a sudden evolutionary leap created an unprecedented variety of life forms.

Trilobites (relatives of woodlice, sometimes a meter long) have spread across all the seas, sea sponges of all shapes and colors have grown, a huge number of species of mollusks, jellyfish, arthropods, echinoderms and other curious creatures have appeared.

Scientists called this rampage of evolution the Cambrian explosion. Please do not confuse it with the Big Bang, it just gave birth to the Universe.

And, despite all the achievements of paleontological science, it is still not clear why the Cambrian explosion happened. Assumptions were made 1.

2. that due to anomalous volcanic activity in the atmosphere, the amount of oxygen jumped, and at the same time the tectonic plates shifted and the supercontinent Gondwana was formed.

Maybe the temperature on Earth has risen due to the greenhouse effect caused by the accumulation of methane. Or the plankton has gone too far, which is why other animals have an excess of food.

Finally, there is good reason to believe that it was in the Cambrian that living creatures invented such a useful and pleasant thing as sexual reproduction. This makes it necessary to evolve faster than banal division and budding, so the Cambrian explosion is a kind of "sexual revolution" in the animal world.

But there is no definitive answer. Paleontology has yet to deliver its verdict. And it is completely incomprehensible why the Cambrian explosion was one and more in the history of the planet such a sharp increase in species diversity did not happen.

6. Where is the Ninth planet

As you know, there are eight planets in our solar system.

Pluto? Who Said Pluto? He's dwarf, he doesn't count.

However, astronomers, having examined the orbits of small objects beyond Neptune, discovered a gravitational anomaly, which can be explained by the presence of some large celestial body there, on the border of the system.

A hypothetical planet should 1.

2.

3. to be slightly smaller than Neptune, 2-4 times larger than the Earth and 10 times heavier than it. The year on the Ninth Planet lasts 15 thousand Earth years. From its orbit, the sun appears to be as small as other stars in the sky. Once it was closer to our star, but then Jupiter took it and threw it into the backyard with its powerful gravitational field. So the planet remained circling there in the darkness.

There is more than enough indirect evidence of the existence of the Ninth Planet, but no one has yet been able to fix it in a telescope. What it looks like, what kind of orbit it has, whether it is a gas giant, water giant, or even a super-earth is still unclear.

7. What are "fast radio bursts"

Periodically, radio signals arrive from space to us on Mother Earth, the origin of which we simply cannot explain. At least at this stage in the development of science and technology.

Since 2007, astronomers have recorded occasional short but extremely powerful millisecond radio pulses. There is more energy in one such than the whole Sun generates in a few days.

It is not clear what kind of "gifts" are sent to us for heavenly bodies. Most likely source 1.

2.

3. "fast radio bursts" - magnetars, that is, especially fast spinning neutron stars with incredibly powerful magnetic fields. Another option is colliding black holes.

Well, and an alien mind, semaphore for half a galaxy, where is it without such a version. However, there is no definite answer yet.

8. Why do humpback whales gather in herds

Humpback whales are loners. And if they decide to hang out together, then only in groups, in which there are no more than seven individuals. And they do it for a short time. At least that's how it was thought.

However, since 2011, scientists have recorded 22 cases when whales gathered in huge herds, "supergroups" of 200 or even more individuals. These are simply unprecedented quantities. Most often, humpbacks arrange a general gathering off the coast of South Africa.

Why such whale raves are needed, no one can give an intelligible answer. The whales themselves refuse to comment.

Perhaps the whales' feeding strategy has changed: krill, prey for humpbacks, migrate, and they go with it. Or, due to the stop of whaling, the animals simply got carried away with reproduction, and there were too many of them.

Or maybe whales gathered in such herds throughout the history of their existence, then mankind mixed their cards, annoying them with their harpoons and guns, and now the natural order of things has been restored.

But this is all just speculation. Scientists have yet to find a definitive answer.