The Mammoth Book of Unexplained Phenomena: From bizarre biology to inexplicable astronomy (Mammoth Books) by Roy Bainton

Author:Roy Bainton [Bainton, Roy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780337968
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2013-01-17T05:00:00+00:00

PART 4:

INEXPLICABLE ASTRONOMY

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So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)

If something weird happens in outer space, astronomers and physicists will go into overdrive to explain it. Yet some events are discussed, logged, then filed away, because they remain as unexplained phenomena. The universe is jam-packed with such mysteries and astronomy is always a work in progress. What was science fiction a decade or so ago, the subject of sceptical scientific laughter, has crept into the realms of possibility. For example, physicists are already hypothesizing that there may be more dimensions than the three we know. As already touched upon, theories such as M-theory and string theory suggest physical space has ten and eleven dimensions, respectively, all said to be spatial. Although these extra dimensions are still unproven, it has been suggested that space acts as if it were “curled up” in the extra dimensions on a subatomic scale. In December 2010, the analysis of results from the Large Hadron Collider seemed dismissive of theories with large extra dimensions. But the CERN experiments have continued, and already some physicists and astronomers are positing the idea that even the universe they are studying might not be the only one. There could be other versions of the universe, even another you, another me, existing in parallel worlds.

This might even explain some of the puzzles surrounding out-of-body and near-death experiences; do we step outside ourselves, into a “second self” and look down on version one? But according to professor of physics Max Tegmark at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “the key point to remember is that parallel universes are not a theory, but a prediction of certain theories. Whatever the ultimate nature of reality may turn out to be, it’s completely different from how it seems.” This is all too complex and difficult to contemplate, so for the time being we’ll have to concentrate on the dimensions and the universe we know, that which we can see, and in “our” universe there are still many inexplicable things going on.

In late 1991 a strange object approached and passed by the earth, and it came very close indeed in astronomical terms. Stunned astronomers began scratching their heads. The object was catalogued as “1991 VG” and it has caused some disquiet because they still don’t know what it was. It was spotted by astronomer Jim Scotti, who was working on the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona, on 6 November 1991. Spacewatch is one of a number of projects that look for near-earth asteroids (NEAs).

At first 1991 VG was thought to be an NEO – a Near Earth Object – perhaps an asteroid. Many asteroids pass so close to the earth sometimes that if the public realized their proximity there could well be panic. Scotti estimated that

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