Earth might soon collide with a "dark matter hurricane"

Astronomers have predicted that it's very likely that a "dark matter hurricane" will collide with the Earth as it speeds through the Milky Way. But, don't panic, it wouldn't cause any damage. Instead, this could be the best chance to hunt for the mysterious particles that form the dark matter.

As our solar system speeds through the outer reaches of the Milky Way, it passes through dark matter at around 230 kilometers per second. According to a study by researchers at the University of Zaragoza, suggests that the dark matter present in the stream may be traveling at twice the speed -- approximately 500km/s -- providing a much better chance to detect dark matter.

There's no certainty on what makes up dark matter, but there are a number of potential candidates such as weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs), gravitationally-interacting massive particles (GIMPs) and axions -- hypothetical elementary particles posited by physicists.

Since the S1 stellar stream travels directly through the solar system, it's likely that the dark matter hurricane will cross the path of several detectors that spread across the globe in an attempt to detect these hypothetical particles.

As previous theories about the dark matter state, it makes up of 85 percent of the matter in the universe, detection of the particles could possibly change the way we look at the universe. But, there's absolutely nothing to panic when you hear about the "dark matter hurricane," in fact it might be a good thing for mankind.

Similar to dark matter, the black holes are something that is still a mystery. Stephen Hawking was one scientist who never stopped trying to discover the mysteries surrounding the black holes.

In fact, not long before his demise, he was working on solving a mystery surrounding the black holes. Recently, his last research paper was made available online, all thanks to his co-authors from Cambridge and Harvard.

The paper was published under the name Black Hole Entropy and Soft Hair and explains the black hole paradox. According to Hawking's co-author Malcolm Perry, the paradox "is perhaps the most puzzling problem in fundamental theoretical physics today." Stephen Hawking has worked closely on the topic for many years.