The Eridanus Supervoid: The First Possible Evidence of a Parallel Universe
Our universe is a very confusing place. The more we explore it with our limited technology, the more we realize how much we still have to learn.
Despite this, in recent years we have made great strides in understanding our cosmos. And along the way, we encountered several mysteries that might force us to rethink everything we thought was possible.
There is a huge region of nothingness in the universe. The Eridanus relict cold spot or supervoid is an area in the constellation of Eridanus whose microwave radiation is unusually weak and large in size relative to the properties expected of cosmic background radiation.
This region of "nothingness" spans 1.8 billion years and is about 3 billion light-years from our galaxy.
But it's not only big, it's also incredibly cold, unlike the regions around it. The cold spot is about 70 µK (0.00007 K) colder than the average temperature of the cosmic microwave background (about 2.7 K). Standard cosmology cannot explain such a giant cosmic hole.
Scientists believe the discovery of this massive sphere of nothingness could explain long-standing cosmological mysteries.
The existence of a vast area of nothingness in the universe has raised questions among experts
Some scientists believe that this "cold spot" in space could be proof of the existence of parallel universes. Some even dare to say that there could be billions of universes like ours.
So far, the most popular explanation is that the mysterious cold spot is the result of a super-vacuum. Supervoids are vast spaces between filaments (the largest structures in the universe) that contain very few or no galaxies. Thus, this massive region of nothingness has been dubbed the Eridanus Super-Void.
Some scientists suggest that this cosmic mystery may be the earliest evidence of a multiverse, and that the Eridanus supervacuum may be the result of a collision between two universes. Our universe could therefore be only one universe among billions of others.
To understand the mysterious super-vacuum, we look at the cosmic microwave background, which scientists commonly call the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The FDC is a sort of map of the radiation left by the Big Bang.
This strange cosmic radiation was emitted shortly after the Big Bang, several hundred thousand years after it.
The FDC provides scientists with the first glimpse of our nascent universe and has become one of the most important elements in the study of the universe in which we live.
The cold spot, also known as the Eridanus supervacuum, was discovered by astronomers in 2004 using data recorded by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
Scientists have long been trying to explain the origin of this mysterious cold spot. Progress in understanding it was made in 2015, when scientists came closer to the solution, as research showed it to be a true "Super-vacuum", where the density of galaxies is much higher. lower than in the rest of the universe.
But, oddly, other studies have not been able to replicate this result.
Then a study of more than 7,000 galaxies showed that the mysterious cold spot in the cosmic microwave background is not caused by a giant void in space, potentially opening the door to more exotic explanations.
According to Laura Mersini-Houghton, cosmologist, theoretical physicist and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the mysterious cold spot in the universe is most likely the imprint of another universe outside our own, caused by a quantum entanglement between universes before they were torn apart by cosmic inflation.
Laura Mersini-Houghton said "Standard cosmology cannot explain such a gigantic cosmic hole" and advanced the remarkable hypothesis that this cold spot is "...an unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own. . »
If true, this is the first empirical evidence for the existence of a parallel universe (although theoretical models of parallel universes have existed before).
The mysterious process of inflation and the Big Bang have convinced some researchers that multiple universes are possible, even very likely. According to theoretical physicist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University (Massachusetts), inflation did not end everywhere at the same time. While it ended for all we can detect from Earth 13.8 billion years ago, cosmic inflation is actually continuing in other places.
This is called the theory of eternal inflation. And when inflation ends in a particular place, a new bubble universe is formed, Vilenkin wrote for Scientific American in 2011.
Parallel universes are no longer just a feature of a good sci-fi story. There are now scientific theories that support the idea of parallel universes beyond our own. However, the multiverse theory remains one of the most controversial theories in science.
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