Can you solve these problems?
Give a thought!
Let’s move a sofa!
Question for you: What is the largest area of a shape that can be maneuvered through an L-shaped corridor?
Well, the above question is an open problem in the field of mathematics that no one has been able to solve yet. The problem is called the “moving sofa problem”. While mathematicians have come up with complex shapes with increasingly higher areas, no one has been able to prove what could be the maximum area.
Just like above, we have many unsolved problems in the field of astronomy which thinkers and learners like you may one day try to solve it. In this article, we will discuss a very small set of those problems.
Unsolved problems in Astronomy: Can you solve them?
Coronal heating problem
Why is the Sun's corona (atmosphere layer) so much hotter than the Sun's surface?
The Sun's photosphere (surface) has a temperature between 4,400 and 6,600 K, while the temperature of the Sun’s corona measures in excess of 1,000,000 K
Astrophysical jet
Why do only certain accretion discs surrounding certain astronomical objects emit relativistic jets along their polar axes?
Origin of magnetar magnetic field
A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, about a trillion times more powerful than the Earth’s magnetic field. We don’t know what is the origin of this enormous magnetic field.
Size of universe
The diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light-years, but what is the size of the whole universe? Is the universe infinite?
Dark matter and Dark Energy
What is the identity of dark matter? Is it a particle? Or, do the phenomena attributed to dark matter point not to some form of matter but actually to an extension of gravity?
What is the cause of the observed accelerating expansion of the universe?
Origin and future of the universe
Perhaps the most popular unsolved problems of physics.
How did the conditions for anything to exist arise? What was before the Big Bang?
Is the universe heading toward a Big Freeze, a Big Rip, a Big Crunch, or a Big Bounce?
In day-to-day life, it can often appear that everything around us has been decoded, but nature always puts up another problem for us to solve. Such problems often act as a great source of internal motivation for the entire humanity to work hard, solve them, and reap the benefits that come along. All thanks to science!