Unsolved mysteries of space. Space and its secrets Articles of the secrets of space and planets

Once everyone thought that the center of the World is the Earth. Over time, this opinion was recognized as erroneous and began to be considered the center of the entire Sun. But then it turned out that the luminary, which gives life to all life on the blue planet, is by no means the center of outer space, but only a tiny grain of sand in the boundless ocean of stars. The ocean itself is not as huge as you might think ...

We all live on planet Earth, which is an integral part of the solar system. It's like our district or district in a vast galactic space. In the center is the Sun (yellow star), around which nine planets revolve in unison. They are known to every student. This is Mercury closest to the star, then Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter follow in turn ...

The sun is a fireball, in the depths of which a thermonuclear reaction is constantly going on. As a result, hydrogen atoms are converted into helium atoms, and huge energy is released. Its small fraction gives life to the planet Earth. A fireball formed by fusion is called a main sequence star...

Despite the fact that the Earth's surface is seen from the Cosmos as defenseless and unprotected in any way, life has existed on it for 3.5 billion years. The planet, open to all winds, successfully preserves its priceless and unique wealth and does not allow it to die either from solar radiation or from continuous meteor showers. These external aggressive factors…

In its orbit, Mercury rushes at an average speed of 48 km / s, and makes a complete revolution around the star in 88 Earth days. The eccentricity of the orbit (a measure of how different the orbit is from a circle) is 0.205, and the run-up between the plane of the equator and the plane of the orbit is an angle of 3°. The last value indicates that on the planet Mercury there are seasonal ...

Blood red is the color of war and grief. It evokes associations with devastation, hunger, death. Mountains of corpses, the remains of burned cities, the ominous scream of birds of prey. For people of relatively calm and prosperous Ancient Greece, the picture is terrible. Therefore, one can imagine with what horror, inner awe and reverence the Hellenes treated the distant star, whose ...

Jupiter's magnetosphere is truly titanic in size. It extends on the day side for sixteen million kilometers, and on the night side it has an elongated shape and ends beyond the orbit of its neighbor Saturn. The solar wind, interacting with the magnetic field, forms radiation belts, which, with their radio emission, can ...

In the upper layers of the atmosphere, the temperature regime of Saturn leaves much to be desired. A terrible cold reigns here. The temperature is kept at marks from -180 to -150 degrees Celsius. This leads to some thoughts. The fact is that if the gas giant received heat only from the Sun, then its equilibrium temperature would correspond to -193 degrees Celsius ...

Uranus is the seventh planet in the solar system and has been faithfully rotating on its distant borders for more than one billion years. There are six planets closer to the star. Two of them - Jupiter and the sparkling rings of Saturn - are called gas giants. Uranus also belongs to this company, radically different from the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars…

Compared to the Earth, the planet Neptune looks majestic. It exceeds the blue planet in mass by 17.2 times, and in diameter by 3.9 times. But it loses significantly in density. The latter is only 1.64 g/cm³. In other words, the surface of the planet is not at all a reliable firmament, but a viscous mass. In addition, as such, there is no surface at all. It refers to the level...

The planet Pluto appeared on the map of the solar system relatively recently. It was discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. But the prelude to such a significant event was the theoretical calculations of the French astronomer Pierre Simon Laplace, which he made back in 1783. This eminent scientist mathematically…

In 2012, terrible cataclysms were predicted for us. Powerful earthquakes, huge tsunamis, frenzied hurricanes were supposed to destroy everything that civilization had created with such difficulty. It was argued that billions of people would die, and the planet itself would "tumble" 180 degrees and change poles ...

The planet Venus is a solid ball surrounded by a dense, rather thick gas cushion of carbon dioxide with a small addition of nitrogen. This pillow spreads mainly over flat terrain. There are few hills on the planet, their total area barely reaches 10%. They are volcanic plateaus and quite…

In 1998, the station sent clear images of Mars' moon Phobos back to Earth. On the lifeless, open to all winds, devoid of any hills, an incomprehensible dark object was clearly visible. In its form, it resembled a fly that accidentally flew into outer space and settled carelessly in such a remarkable area. Only a fly...

The most important place in the mythology of the Dogon was occupied by the star Sirius. In the view of this people, it was considered triple and consisted of a main star and two minor stars. The Dogon called the main or Sirius-A Sigi tolo. The secondary ones were named: Po tolo and Emmeya tolo. There was no doubt that Potolo was Sirius B or a white dwarf. But Emmeya tolo astronomy is unknown ...

The aliens who appeared from outer space on Earth were highly developed beings. Once on the blue planet, they very soon came across ancient people who had a primitive level of development. Aliens have given these creatures new life. They taught them a lot, and then flew away and got lost in the cosmic abyss. For primitive man, cosmic entities, of course ...

This incident dates back to November 30, 1989. It happened at 3 am in Manhattan (New York). Several people witnessed this incomprehensible and eerie phenomenon. An explanation for it has not yet been found, and for many skeptics the authenticity of the mysterious case is highly doubtful. The culprit of the mystery of the century was ...

This incident occurred on June 24, 1947 at 15:00 local time. Incident Location: Cascade Mountains, Washington State, USA. A direct witness to the mysterious phenomenon was Kenneth Arnold, an amateur pilot and owner of his own aircraft, equipped to fly over mountainous terrain. The day before this date, a C-46 aircraft crashed in the Cascade Mountains. On board…

This event took place on November 5, 1975. It happened in the Apache Sitgreaves National Reserve, not far from the town of Heber. This is Arizona, USA. The tragedy happened at the end of the day. The clock showed 18:15 local time. Mankind owes such accuracy to lumberjack foreman Mike Rogers. He looked at his watch and shouted to his comrades that it was time to return to the city ...

Despite the active study of exploration, space is still full of mysteries for mankind. Only quite recently, gravitational waves were considered only a theory, and today their existence has already been scientifically proven.

Despite the active study of exploration, space is still full of mysteries for mankind. Only quite recently, gravitational waves were considered only a theory, and today their existence has already been scientifically proven. Who knows what secrets these gloomy dark depths of the universe conceal in themselves. Nevertheless, even among what has already been discovered by scientists, there are a lot of extremely amazing things, the existence of which is hard to believe...

Alcohol

This discovery was recently made by an international team of scientists working on a 30-meter telescope in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. They found that Comet Lovejoy, codenamed C/2011 W3, contains as many as 20 types of different organic molecules, including sugar and alcohol molecules. This periodic comet was discovered in November 2011. By all indications, its diameter should be at least 500 meters. In addition, it is one of the brightest comets known to science. So far, it is not completely clear where all this organic matter came from in the gas and dust tail of Lovejoy's comet. It is possible that they were "picked up" somewhere in the process of the comet's journey through space.

Another version says that these compounds could have arisen from a huge interstellar molecular cloud that formed the solar system.

planet of diamonds

An exoplanet with the complex name PSR J1719-1438 b was discovered in 2009. It is located in the constellation Serpens at a distance of 3900 light years from our solar system. But what is remarkable about this planet is that, by all accounts, it is almost entirely composed of crystalline carbon. PSR J1719-1438 b was one of the first of its kind, but far from the only one. To date, scientists are aware of at least five such carbon planets. It is assumed that they also have an iron core, but the basis of their surface is mainly silicon and titanium carbides, as well as pure carbon. According to scientists, on such planets there may be areas completely covered with kilometers of diamonds.

Huge rain cloud

And here, without any metaphors, this is really a gigantic accumulation of moisture, which can conditionally be called a cloud. This cloud is 10 billion light-years away and is believed to envelop a supermassive black hole. Moreover, when the term “huge” or “giant” is applied to something in space, then this should be understood on a completely different scale. No, this cloud is not the size of the continent of Eurasia, for example. It is so huge that it is about 100,000 times the size of the Sun.

cold stars

A hot ball that, with the help of a thermonuclear reaction, produces a huge amount of energy, light and heat. In any case, our native Sun is just such a star. But the truth is that some stars can have very unusual conditions for them. Such stars, for example, are brown dwarfs. These are, if I may say so, dying stars, in which the reserves of nuclei are almost completely used up. Thermonuclear reactions are still going on in them, but not with such activity and not with such a strong release of heat.

For example, the star WISE 1828+2650. It is the coldest of all known brown dwarfs. Its surface temperature is only 25 degrees Celsius. Quite comfortable to walk around the star in shorts and a T-shirt.

Possible ocean of life

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is the most likely candidate for discovering an ocean of extraterrestrial life. At least that's what NASA scientists think. Conditions on the surface and in the atmosphere of this satellite are extremely harsh. The average temperature is minus 170–180 degrees Celsius. In some places, methane-ethane rivers flow and even lakes form. And most of the surface consists of water ice. Nevertheless, in the conclusions of researchers, Titan is very often compared with our native Earth in the early stages of its development. It is not excluded that the existence of the simplest forms of life on the satellite is possible, in particular, in underground reservoirs, where conditions can be much more comfortable than on the surface.

Lightning

Modern science is already well aware that lightning is not only an earthly phenomenon. Electrical discharges have been registered in the atmospheres of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and other planets. But few people know that the strongest lightning occurs not on planets, but around black holes. Those very relativistic jets or jets that escape from the centers of quasars, black holes and radio galaxies can, in fact, also be considered lightning. Extremely powerful, huge. Their nature is still very little studied. Scientists believe that such discharges are formed due to the interaction of magnetic fields with an accretion disk around a black hole or neutron star.

real hell

If there is a real hell somewhere, then it must definitely be the planet CoRoT-7 b. It orbits the star COROT-7 in the constellation Monoceros, about 489 light years away. The planet's problem is that it is too close to its star and always turns only one side to it. Due to such conditions, a huge ocean of hot lava formed on the illuminated side of the planet. Its temperature is +2500-2600 degrees Celsius, which is higher than the melting point of most known minerals. Therefore, on the "warm" side of the planet, almost everything melted.

Moreover, the entire atmosphere of CoRoT-7 b mainly consists of this evaporated rock, which then falls to colder areas in the form of stone precipitation. It is assumed that once this planet was a gas giant the size of Saturn, but the star literally "evaporated" it to the core. Now it is only one and a half times the size of the Earth.

magnetars

Our Sun rotates around its axis in about 25 days, gradually distorting the magnetic field around it. Now imagine a dying star, which, in its death throes, collapses and shrinks into a tiny lump of matter. A huge, gigantic star, sometimes larger than the Sun, turns into a ball with a diameter of only a few tens of kilometers. All the while, it spins faster and faster. Like a twirling ballerina clasping and spreading her arms, this star spins in exactly the same way with its magnetic field.

According to scientists, sometimes the magnetic field of a magnetar can be a million times stronger than the earth's. For comparison: a magnetic field of this strength could disable your phone at a distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers. It would seem that there is nothing so terrible here, it is enough just to keep your electronic devices away from magnetars. But this magnetic field is so strong that it can affect matter itself, twisting atoms into thin cylinders.

Orphan planets

Since the school bench, everyone knows that there are stars around which planets revolve, around which, in turn, their satellites can revolve. However, there are exceptions to all rules. Imagine that in the vast cold space there are planets that are not attached by gravity to either stars or other planets. They are usually called orphan planets or wanderer planets. It is interesting that if an orphan planet is in a galaxy, then even if it is not attached to the stars, it still revolves around the galactic core. Of course, the circulation period in such cases is very long. But it may also be that the planet is in an absolutely empty intergalactic space and then it does not revolve around anything at all.

Time Machine

In general, the entire cosmos and the entire Universe imagine one big time machine, in which even the distance for clarity is measured in years, light years, of course. However, given that the size of our galaxy is about 100,000 light years, then any event that happens on one of its edges will be noticeable on the other only after 100,000 years. But this does not mean that the speed of information propagation in the Universe is limited only by the speed of light. If you look at space in the infrared, you can see something that has not yet happened for us. A simple example: the famous "Pillars of Creation" is a region in the Eagle Nebula. According to the Spitzer infrared telescope, the "Pillars of Creation" were destroyed by a supernova explosion about 6,000 years ago. But since the nebula itself is located at a distance of 7,000 light years from Earth, we will see them for about a thousand years, although they themselves have long been gone.

According to Yale University, our galaxy has been replenished with large interstellar objects - icy cosmic bodies with a strange nature of origin. But no one is in a hurry to talk about the Apocalypse, because The Milky Way is updated with different objects every year. They're smaller than the new ones, but that doesn't make them any less weird or interesting. And Yale University researchers Gregory[…]

Scientists have noticed that during the merger, neutron stars emit energy that is a thousand times greater than that emitted by new luminaries. Moreover, the merger is accompanied by strong gravity, which brings heavy metals together. The latter are predominantly gold and platinum. It is possible that due to the corresponding stellar effect from Space to Earth in[…]

The other day, overseas astronomers using the TESS telescope managed to recognize a planet next to which three suns are adjacent. The Techno resource posted information regarding the remoteness of the found object from the Blue Planet - 22.5 light years, which is very small by the standards of the Universe. The exoplanet is tied to the LTT 1445 system, so it received the appropriate name - LTT[…]

Recently, the media have been offering various kinds of reports regarding the contact of earthlings with representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations, occurring in the form of observation of their aircraft, visiting their planets or experiments conducted on earthlings. There was no direct contact recorded on film. Therefore, there is a reason why the more technically advanced[…]

The world of stars, cosmic infinity, the unknown Universe, the open book of cosmic worlds, the night starry sky, the incomprehensible mystery of being, calling to move away from the low, ordinary and strive for the high and eternal. How often does the average inhabitant of the Earth think about this? What are our star brothers in mind? How are they similar and how are they different from us? What kind[…]

Not a single object and not a single phenomenon of the world around us causes so many questions and interest as the cosmos. Looking into the night starry sky, people wondered about the size of outer space, its origin, population and laws of existence. The invention and launch of telescopes into orbit has greatly expanded the understanding of space, but[…]

Astronomers have discovered a new, young planet, in the dust ring of which an analogue of the Earth is born. In addition, they believe that they are witnessing the emergence of a new space system. Astronomers have discovered one interesting space system. It is located in the direction of the constellation Taurus. Scientists have identified the main features of the system. After analyzing the data, astronomers came to the conclusion that it has[…]

Previously, scientists believed that our planet has a flat shape and stands on three pillars. A little later, they managed to prove that it has an ellipsoid shape, and even later, they discovered the solar system and all the planets contained in it. Gradually, mankind's knowledge of space grew. Scientists got a more realistic idea of ​​the Universe, continued to explore new cosmic horizons. To this day, we cannot answer all questions about the universe. We managed to unravel some of its secrets only in this century. We will talk about them below.

What is this strange object at the center of our galaxy?

Object "G2" is an inexplicable body located in the central part of our "Milky Way". For several decades, scientists could not figure out what it is. Initially, they believed that "G2" is a hydrogen cloud slowly moving towards our black hole. Scientists were alarmed by the fact that after entering the gravitational field of this hole, "G2" began to behave strangely, not typical of a cloud. If "G2" were a cloud, it would explode near the black hole, noticeably changing its structure. Instead, the object described above remained in the gravitational field of the hole unharmed, and even continued to rotate around it.

The mystery of "G2" was solved by a team of astronomers from California who worked with the modern Keck Observatory. It turned out that "G2" is a giant star surrounded by a cloud of gas and cosmic dust. This star, according to the assumption of astronomers, was formed after the collision of a pair of similar objects of a binary type. In addition, scientists believe that there are other similar objects near "G2" formed by a black hole. To be more precise, it was the gravitational field of this hole that led to the collision of binary objects, which then formed the body "G2" and others similar.

What is the composition of the nearest "dwarf galaxies"

Our galaxy is in a certain galactic group, in which it is the largest. It is surrounded by similar smaller objects called "dwarf galaxies". The shape of these dwarfs is spheroidal. Nothing more was known about them until this year. These "mini-galaxies" turn out to have enough hydrogen to create stars, but not all of them.

Thanks to super-powerful telescopes, scientists have determined that only "mini-galaxies" as far from our "Milky Way" as possible can form stars. Objects close to us contain practically no neutral hydrogen. It turned out that our galactic system is to blame. It is surrounded by a plasma hot field that "sucks" hydrogen from the "dwarf galaxies" located near us, leaving them completely non-functional.

How Much Dark Matter Is Really

The Lambda CDM demonstrates that our astronomers should be able to see some of the closest galaxies from Earth, but this is not the case in reality. By the way, these galaxies should be large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Why don't we see them?

The astrophysicist P. Kafle from un. Western Australia. He decided to try to measure the amount of black matter in our galactic system, after which he put forward his assumption:

Everything that we see around us, including the stars, the moon, people, animals, and so on, is only four percent of the entire universe. Dark matter in it, in turn, occupies only twenty-five percent. The rest that is present in it is dark energy.

A little later, Kafle's experiments showed that our galactic system has half as much dark energy as we thought before. Thus, by inserting his calculations into the Lambda-CDM model, Kafle found out how many galaxies we should actually see with the naked eye. It turned out that there were only three of them, which is what is happening now. It’s hard to believe, but we can really observe three satellite galaxies that are very close to our Milky Way, but, alas, we cannot understand that these are galaxies without special equipment. Names of these galaxies: Large and Small Magellanic clouds, "dwarf galaxy" Sagittarius.

What processes take place inside an exploding star

In December 2013, astronomers were finally able to see how an ordinary star transforms into an exploding one. Thanks to this, they managed to solve the mystery of gamma radiation - energy bursts of incredible power.

"New" arises after it gets the gas of a neighbor, which is often a "white dwarf". Such pairs are called binary. After that, the star explodes, spewing gas at a crazy speed for a decent distance. In some situations, "Nova" forms a new star, but this is impossible to predict, like the explosion itself.

The released gas begins to move along the orbital plane of space bodies. A little later, even faster particles of the "white dwarf" catch up with this matter and collide with it. This leads to a super-powerful cosmic shock, during which gamma radiation is born.

What can glow in space

If you look at the night sky, you can see a huge number of shining stars. If you get a small amateur telescope, you can see relatively clearly some of the planets, our moon and other nearby objects. But, it should be noted that this is not all that glows in space.

If you get an X-ray detector, then in space you can see an X-ray glow, which scientists call the diffuse X-ray background. For fifty years, astronomers could not determine what this glow emits. They had several options. The source of this light may be located outside of our planetary system. In addition, it can be in local "bubbles" with the highest temperature. It may also be located in our planetary system.

The astrophysicist M. Galleatsi solved the mystery. He suggested that the X-ray background is emitted not by one, but by several objects, and compared it with the light that we can see in the dark, without realizing how far its source is from us.

What is the size of our "galactic region"

Recently, astronomers were able to determine that our galaxy belongs to a certain extra-large cluster called Laniakea.

This cluster in its composition contains about 100 thousand galaxies similar to ours. In addition, it is now known about it that it stretched out for 500 million light years. Its mass is simply incredible - 100 million billion solar masses. We and our "Milky Way" are located on the outskirts of the cluster. Simply put, Laniakea is a huge city that is part of a certain country. In it, we represent a small area on the outskirts.

What could happen to our galaxy at the end of its life

Scientists have found that the evolution of most galactic systems is influenced by black holes located in their central part. These holes gradually expel low-temperature gas from galaxies, allowing them to form new stars. At the same time, the outflow of gas is constantly accelerating, which has puzzled astrophysicists for several decades.

The neighboring galaxy IC5063 helped determine why the outflow of gas is accelerating. It turned out that super-energy flows from electrons that come out of black holes are to blame for this. Astrophysicists have also found out that our galactic system in the next five billion years may collide with the neighboring Andromeda. In such a collision, gas is released, which then accumulates in the central part of the combined system, feeding the black hole. This strengthened hole will release more electron currents, which will eventually suck out all the gas from the galactic system, both ours and the neighboring one. After that, the galaxies will become "childless" - they will not be able to form new stars.

The cosmos still remains unknown: the more we dive into its mysteries, the more questions arise.

Origin of the Universe

This is a riddle of riddles over which mankind will struggle for a long time to come. One of the very first scientific hypotheses - the Big Bang theory - was put forward by the Soviet geophysicist A. A. Fridman in 1922, but even today it is the most popular in explaining the origin of the Universe.

According to the hypothesis, at the beginning, all matter was compressed into one point, which is a homogeneous medium with an extremely high energy density. As soon as the critical level of compression was overcome, the Big Bang occurred, after which the Universe began its constant expansion.

Scientists are interested in what happened before the Big Bang. According to one of the hypotheses - nothing, according to another - everything: the Big Bang is just another stage of an endless cycle of expansions and contractions of space.
However, the Big Bang theory also has vulnerabilities. According to some physicists, the expansion of the Universe after the Big Bang would be accompanied by a chaotic distribution of matter, but it, on the contrary, is ordered.

The boundaries of the universe

The universe is constantly growing, and this is an established fact. Back in 1924, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered fuzzy nebulae using a 100-inch telescope. These were the same galaxies as ours. A few years later, he proved that galaxies move away from each other, obeying a certain pattern: the farther the galaxy, the faster it moves.
With the help of powerful modern telescopes, astronomers, plunging into the depths of the universe, simultaneously take us to the past - to the era of the formation of galaxies.

From the light coming from the far reaches of the Universe, astronomers have calculated its age - about 13.7 billion years. The size of our Milky Way galaxy was also determined - about 100 thousand light years and the diameter of the entire Universe - 156 billion light years.

However, the American astrophysicist Neil Cornish draws attention to the paradox: if the movement of galaxies continues to accelerate uniformly, then over time their speed will exceed the speed of light. In his opinion, in the future it will no longer be possible "to see so many galaxies" because a superluminal signal is impossible.
And what is beyond the designated boundaries of the universe? There is no answer to this question yet.

Black holes

Despite the fact that the existence of black holes was known even before the creation of Einstein's theory of relativity, evidence for their presence in space has been obtained relatively recently.

The black hole itself cannot be seen, but astrophysicists have drawn attention to the movement of interstellar gas at the center of each of the galaxies, including ours. Features of the behavior of matter made it clear to scientists that the object that attracts it has a "monstrous" gravity.

The power of a black hole is so great that the space-time surrounding it simply collapses. Any object, including light, falling beyond the so-called "event horizon" is forever drawn into a black hole.

At the center of the Milky Way, according to scientists, is one of the most massive black holes - millions of times heavier than our Sun.

British physicist Stephen Hawking suggested that there are ultra-small black holes in the universe, which can be compared with the mass of a mountain condensed to the size of a proton. Perhaps the study of this phenomenon will be accessible to science.

supernova

When a star dies, it illuminates outer space with the brightest flash, capable of surpassing the glow of a galaxy in power. This is a supernova.

Despite the fact that, according to astronomers, supernovae occur regularly, science has complete data only for outbreaks recorded in 1572 by Tycho Brahe and in 1604 by Johannes Kepler.

According to scientists, the duration of the maximum brightness of a supernova is about two Earth days, but the consequences of the explosion are observed after millennia. So, it is believed that one of the most amazing sights in the Universe - the Crab Nebula - is the product of a supernova.

The theory of supernovae is still far from complete, but science already claims that this phenomenon can occur both in gravitational collapse and in a thermonuclear explosion. Some astronomers hypothesize that the chemical composition of supernovae is the building material of galaxies.

space time

Time is a relative value. Einstein believed that if one of the twin brothers was sent into space at the speed of light, then upon returning he would be much younger than his brother, who remained on Earth. The “twin paradox” is explained by the theory that the faster a person moves in space, the slower time passes.

However, there is another theory: the stronger gravity, the more time slows down. According to her, time on the surface of the Earth will flow more slowly than in orbit. This theory is also confirmed by the clock installed on the GPS spacecraft, which, on average, is ahead of Earth time by 38,700 ns/day.

However, the researchers claim that for six months in orbit, astronauts, on the contrary, gain about 0.007 seconds. It all depends on the speed of the spacecraft. To test the theory of relativity in practice.

Kuiper belt

Discovered at the end of the 20th century beyond the orbit of Neptune, the asteroid belt (Kuiper belt) changed the usual picture of the solar system. In particular, he predetermined the fate of Pluto, which migrated from the family of planets to a cohort of planetoids.
Part of the gases that ended up in the most remote and cold region during the formation of the solar system turned into ice, forming many planetoids. Now there are more than 10,000 of them.

Interestingly, a new object has recently been discovered - the planetoid UB313, which is larger than Pluto. Some astronomers have already tipped the find to the place of the departed ninth planet.

The Kuiper belt, located at a distance of 47 astronomical units from the Sun, would seem to have outlined the final boundaries for the objects of the solar system, but scientists continue to find new, much more distant and mysterious planetoids. In particular, astrophysicists suggested that a number of Kuiper belt objects "have nothing to do with the solar system and contain matter of a system alien to us."

habitable worlds

According to Stephen Hawking, the physical laws of the universe are the same everywhere, therefore, the laws of life must also be universal. The scientist admits the possibility of the existence of life similar to the earth and in other galaxies.

A relatively young science, astrobiology, is engaged in assessing the viability of planets based on their similarity to the Earth. While the main efforts of astrobiologists are directed to the planets of the solar system, but the results of their research are not comforting for those who hope to find organic life near the Earth.

In particular, scientists prove that there is no life on Mars and could not be, since the planet's gravity is too low to hold a sufficiently dense atmosphere.

What's more, the interiors of planets like Mars are rapidly cooling, causing the geologic activity that supports organic life to cease.

The only hope for scientists is exoplanets of other star systems, where conditions can be comparable to those on Earth. For these purposes, the Kepler spacecraft was launched in 2009, which, over several years of work, discovered more than 1000 candidates for habitable planets. The size of 68 planets turned out to be the same as that of the Earth, but the nearest one is at least 500 light-years away. So the search for life in such distant worlds is a matter of the not very near future.