Even a casual student of science can tell us that the universe in which we live was created as a result of a big bang of some primordial matter due to which it is still expanding. This expansion which was like opening of a fist is increasing as it gets away from a higher concentration of matter to a less dense state.
Our universe is basically energy which if we look all around us, is broadly manifesting itself in two forms only viz; the matter (all tangible things, living or non-living) and the radiation, say light. The light around us comes in packets of energy called the photons just as the matter comes in particles. It is learnt from an elementary knowledge of science that one of the essential reasons for the production of flash of light or the creation of photons is the annihilation of particles and anti-particles with opposite charges say an electron and a positron. However this should not leave us in doubt about the existence of anti-particles of the neutral ones because these too are more basically composed of charged quarks which are the most fundamental particles known so far.
If there were exactly equal amounts of matter formed from particles and anti-matter formed from anti-particles at the time of big bang, then the whole universe should have been permeated by the radiation alone due to their annihilation. But the material existence of this universe clearly suggests that there must have been some extra matter over anti-matter which didn’t get cancelled and exhibited itself as stars, planets, the heavenly bodies and the people. Having said this, a serious mystery arises about our existence especially with regard to one of the most fundamental and established findings of science viz; the fact that every particle has got its anti-particle. As is also stated in the glorious Qur’an that God has created everything in pairs (chapter78:, verse:08). The immediate quest therefore is to look for the possible existence of an anti-world and to probe for its exploration although it’s hard to pin down a substance that vanishes as soon as it touches anything from our side. The American physicist, Dr. Leon Ledermann of Columbia University has attempted to prove the existence of anti-atoms and believes that an anti-world exists as a counterpart to the real Universe in which we live. Although the current scientific opinion does not altogether accept the possibility of existence outside the four basic aggregate states of solid, liquid, gas and plasma, the signature of anti-matter has been seen in cosmic rays, in solar flares and also in the decay of radioactive molecules. If one wants to find out more about antimatter, CERN is the place to go. Researchers at European Centre for Nuclear Research located at the France-Swiss border near Geneva are trying hard to make antimatter in useful quantities by first accelerating the particles to very high energies using particle accelerators and further subjecting these to collisions in large colliders.
After a huge number of proton collisions, scientists have announced that more matter particles were generated than anti-matter which exceeds the expectations of present knowledge of science according to which as much matter should have been created as anti-matter. This indicates that the nature has a strong preference for matter over antimatter. The matter anti-matter asymmetry is an unresolved mystery which calls for investment of more intelligent efforts.
By fitting a theoretical model of the composition of the Universe to the combined set of cosmological observations, it has turned out that roughly70% of the universe is dark energy while as the dark matter makes about 25% of it. The rest everything ever observed with all of our instruments is the normal matter which adds up to less than 5% of the Universe.
Dark matter is not in the form of stars and planets nor is it the anti-matter to have emitted photons by annihilating with the matter around it, given its bulk existence. Therefore we are more certain about what dark matter is not than about what it is. However the word dark is used in the same connotation as say Africa was called as the Dark Continent because it was not in our knowledge for long.
What if there are people on some other planet as wise and as intelligent as we are and have technologically reached a level at least equivalent to ours. Then as we want to find, probe and locate the life in the outer space, so might they be up to the same. In the same context, (SETI) search for extra terrestrial intelligence evolved as a concept in which some signals are send in cosmos using supercomputers. If these signals find a match with similar such alien signals, it will be the first step towards success. Such ideas have also been promoted and propagated through the means of entertainment such as the Indian movie, Koi Mil Gaya.
Also, it is perhaps in the same context that Iqbal the poet of east says;
Qana’at na kar aalamae rangge bu par
Zameen aur bi aasman aur bi hain
Abhi ishq ke imtihaan aur bhi hain
Sitaroan se aage jahan aur bhi hain
Meaning not to assign any boundaries to the limitless expanse of the cosmos for there are more planets beyond the planets and more stars beyond the stars and therefore we are more likely to be exposed to more new skies surrounding their earths in future.
Dr. Qudsia Gani is Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Cluster University Srinagar
qudsiagani6@gmail.com