00:00Wow! Astronomers just discovered that the solar system is moving way faster than it should.
00:06One trusted cosmic speedometer says we're cruising at a normal pace.
00:11But a new one says we're racing through space at a speed that should not even be possible if our physics are right.
00:18So it seems that either something out there is pulling us, or one of our basic ideas about the universe is seriously wrong.
00:25Now, when we move, things in front of us react more than things behind us.
00:32For example, if we walk through falling snow, the flakes hit our faces, not the backs of our heads.
00:39Ride a bike, and the air pushes harder in front, while the air behind feels calm.
00:44The front gets busier, the back gets quieter.
00:47That difference alone is enough to tell our brain that we are in motion.
00:51In cosmology, this front-versus-back pattern has a technical name.
00:56It's called a kinematic dipole.
00:59Astronomers use this principle when they measure how fast our solar system is moving through space.
01:04To do this on a cosmic scale, astronomers look at the sky the way we look at the world when we start moving.
01:11Only, instead of snowflakes or air, they use distant galaxies.
01:15These galaxies sit so far away, they barely change over billions of years.
01:21So they work like tiny markers frozen in place, perfect for spotting the difference between what's in front and what's behind.
01:29If the universe is smooth on the biggest scales, you'd expect the number of galaxies in each direction to be about the same.
01:37It doesn't really matter where the Milky Way is pointing or how we're spinning.
01:41The sky should balance out.
01:43But if our solar system is moving, one side might seem a bit more crowded because we're flying into it.
01:50It's the same trick as noticing more rain hitting the front of your jacket when you run forward.
01:56So, astronomers created huge maps of the sky using radio telescopes, which are good at picking up galaxies that shine in radio waves.
02:04Radio waves travel through dust, so the view stays clean.
02:08They counted how many radio galaxies appear in every direction to see if one side of the sky really is busier than the rest.
02:16And that's when they noticed something strange.
02:19The side of the sky we're moving toward was much more crowded than expected, like someone stuffed extra galaxies into that patch.
02:27This could mean we're moving faster than the standard model allows, or the galaxies are unevenly spread.
02:34We already know our motion from another source, the cosmic microwave background.
02:38It's the leftover glow from the Big Bang, and it works like a giant universal speedometer.
02:44For decades, it's given us a stable measurement of how fast the universe is moving.
02:49But this new result does not match that value at all.
02:53That extra crowding in the sky isn't supposed to exist at that level.
02:57Our best model of the universe says that when we zoom out far enough, the cosmos should look smooth and even.
03:04This result makes scientists scratch their heads.
03:07The pattern in the radio galaxy map was much stronger and more lopsided than expected.
03:13It lined up almost perfectly with the direction we're already moving, as if something out there was pulling harder than anything we've put into our models.
03:23Scientists just didn't look at one map and call it a day.
03:26They checked the result using several sky surveys made with different kinds of radio telescopes.
03:32One of those was LOFAR, a giant web of antennas spread across Europe that listens to the lowest, faintest radio signals, combined with two other large radio surveys.
03:43It's like taking three pictures of the same scene using three totally different cameras.
03:49If one of them added a strange color or distortion, the other two would catch it.
03:53But here, all three showed the same odd result.
03:58The dipole they measured is about 3.7 times stronger than what the standard model of the universe predicts.
04:05That's not a small calibration problem.
04:08That's a your calculator must be broken kind of difference.
04:11Do you understand how impossible this is?
04:14Imagine checking two speedometers at the same time.
04:18One of them is the reliable one we always trust.
04:21That's the cosmic microwave background in this situation.
04:24It says we're moving at a normal speed.
04:27But the second speedometer subtly claims we're going more than three times faster, like 200 miles per hour inside a parking lot.
04:35We would know something was off.
04:37Both readings can't be right.
04:40This is the problem.
04:41The CMB gives a solid decades-old speed.
04:45But the new radio galaxy result is showing something different.
04:49Two measures that should match are telling very different stories.
04:53So what could be the reason for these broken calculations?
04:57Well, one idea is that the universe is not as smooth or even on large scales as our model assumes.
05:03We expect that if we zoom out far enough, everything should start looking roughly the same.
05:09But this result hints that the large-scale universe might be more uneven than that.
05:15Maybe some huge regions are a bit richer in galaxies, while others are emptier.
05:20And those differences add up across the sky, creating a dipole stronger than the standard model predicts.
05:26If that is the case, the extra radio galaxies are not a mistake.
05:31They are a sign that the cosmos does not follow the straightforward pattern our model assumes.
05:36Now, another idea is that something genuinely huge and nearby might be pulling on our whole region of space.
05:44No, sadly, not some giant space monster messing with our system from another dimension.
05:50The universe already has giant walls of galaxies, long chains of superclusters, huge clumps of dark matter,
05:57and massive, empty voids that stretch for hundreds of millions of light-years.
06:02These things are so large that they can change how entire regions of space move.
06:08It's not a sudden yank, more like a slow, constant tug on everything nearby over a very long time.
06:16If there's something like that close enough, we can't see it.
06:19A wide stretch of space is hidden behind the Milky Way's own dust and bright stars.
06:24Astronomers call this the zone of avoidance, because our telescopes can barely look at what sits behind that glowing band.
06:32We already know there's a large concentration of mass in that blocked region called the Great Attractor,
06:38which was my nickname in high school.
06:40And some researchers think something even larger could be sitting deeper in the same direction.
06:45Now, if that's true, then the strange pattern we see in radio galaxies might not be a mistake.
06:52It could be the first hint that something huge is tugging on our whole galaxy region,
06:58and we simply haven't mapped that part of space yet.
07:01Finally, the third idea is that something is off with the model we use to describe how the universe works.
07:07A model is just a big set of rules, like a recipe.
07:11Our current one explains dark matter, dark energy, how galaxies spread out, and how the cosmos changes over time,
07:19and it expects the universe to behave in a smooth, predictable way on huge scales.
07:25The radio galaxy result does not fit that picture.
07:28It behaves like a number that refuses to match the rest of the equation,
07:32so scientists have to take it seriously.
07:35It could mean that matter and energy spread across space in a way we did not build into the model.
07:41That would not break physics.
07:43It would just mean the rules need an update.
07:46So, what happens next?
07:48A bunch of powerful new surveys are coming online.
07:52And even though they weren't built specifically to solve the dipole problem,
07:56they're going to be extremely useful for checking it.
07:59The Square Kilometer Array and the Rubin Observatory
08:02are all going to map galaxies in way more detail than the older surveys we use now.
08:09With cleaner, deeper data,
08:11these instruments may help us determine whether the strong dipole is real
08:15or fades away when we look at it with better tools.
08:18None of these are special missions made just for this question,
08:22but the next round of observations will test it naturally.
08:25If this strange motion turns out to be real,
08:29then something big is shaping our whole region of space.
08:32If it's not,
08:33then we just learn something important
08:35about how easy it is to fool ourselves with patterns in the sky.
08:39Either way,
08:40we get one step closer to understanding the universe and its puzzles.
08:45That's it for today.
08:46So hey,
08:47if you pacified your curiosity,
08:48then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
08:51Or if you want more,
08:52just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side.
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