Space and Astronomy Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
Grouped by the part of the atlas the question sits in. Start here if you know the territory better than the technique.
Not Yet Classified 4
Yuri Kondratyuk
How and when did Yuri Kondratyuk actually die during the Second World War?
Open Yuri Kondratyuk
Why It Is Open Historical accounts disagree. His unit fought the Nazis in October 1941, and 3 October 1941 is sometimes given as his date of death, but evidence collected in the 1990s suggests he instead disappeared in January or February 1942 while repairing a communications cable near the village of Zasetsky in the Kaluga region. His remains were never definitively recovered or identified, so no single account has been confirmed.
What Would Settle It Documentary or forensic confirmation of his unit's exact movements and casualties across late 1941 and early 1942, or recovery and identification of his remains.
Expertise Needed Military history and archival research
Question posed in
Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles), Yuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - death circumstances.
Viking Program
Were the positive results from the Viking landers' biological experiments evidence of microbial life on Mars, or can they be explained by non-biological chemistry in the Martian soil?
Open Viking Program
Why It Is Open The Viking landers' Labeled Release experiment produced results initially read as consistent with biological metabolism, but most scientists later concluded the same results were more likely caused by non-biological, highly oxidizing chemical reactions in the Martian soil. No follow-up mission has definitively settled which explanation is correct.
What Would Settle It A mission capable of directly detecting biological molecules or organisms in Martian soil, rather than inferring metabolism indirectly from gas-exchange chemistry, or a complete explanation of the Labeled Release results from soil chemistry alone that leaves no ambiguity.
Expertise Needed Astrobiology and planetary soil chemistry
Question posed in
Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles), Viking program, Biological experiments section.
James Webb
Did James Webb personally know of, direct, or enable the dismissal of federal employees for being gay or suspected of being gay, during his State Department tenure (1949-1952) and as NASA Administrator (1961-1968), the question behind the 2021-2023 petition to rename the James Webb Space Telescope?
Open James Webb
Why It Is Open NASA's 2021 and a further 2022 investigation, covering more than 50,000 documents, found no direct evidence Webb personally directed the dismissals scientists call the Lavender Scare, and historian David K. Johnson concluded there is no evidence he led or instigated any persecution. The documentary record from the period is nonetheless incomplete, and some scientists and historians who signed the original renaming petition maintain the question cannot be conclusively closed either way by an agency-run investigation alone.
What Would Settle It Discovery of internal State Department or NASA personnel records from Webb's own tenure that explicitly document his personal role, or an independent archival review beyond the scope of NASA's 2021-2022 internal investigation.
Expertise Needed Archival institutional history of federal employment discrimination
Question posed in
Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles), James E. Webb, Legacy section.
Fermi Paradox
Why has no evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations been detected despite the high estimated probability of their existence implied by the size and age of the observable universe?
Open Fermi Paradox
Why It Is Open Every proposed resolution (the Great Filter, limits on interstellar travel and communication, short civilization lifespans, or simply insufficient search effort) remains unconfirmed; no direct evidence distinguishes between them, and SETI searches to date cover only a tiny fraction of the sky, frequency range and time.
What Would Settle It A confirmed detection of an extraterrestrial technosignature, or a rigorous, evidence-backed narrowing of the terms in the Drake Equation (especially the odds of abiogenesis, the odds of intelligence evolving, and typical civilization lifetime) would resolve or substantially reframe the question.
Expertise Needed Astrobiology and SETI
Question posed in
Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles).