Is our universe part of a multiverse ?
The idea that our universe may only be one of an infinite number of universes that exist within an overarching multiverse is something that has been gaining a lot of traction over the last few years.
While this concept has so far remained mostly theoretical, scientists believe that they may have finally caught a glimpse of the light from one of these parallel universes within our own universe.
To accomplish this the researchers compared a map of our universe’s cosmic microwave background radiation with a complete picture of the sky taken by ESA’s Planck telescope.
When one is subtracted from the other there remains a mysterious patch of light which could be evidence that another universe came in to contact with our own at some point in the distant past.
“The fine tuning of parameters in the early universe required to reproduce our present day universe suggests that our universe may simply be a region within an eternally inflating super-region,” said Dr Ranga-Ram Chary, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology.
“Many other regions beyond our observable universe would exist with each such region governed by a different set of physical parameters than the ones we have measured for our universe.”
While it is still too early to know for sure whether the unexplained glow really is from a parallel universe, NASA is hoping to acquire funding to develop its Primordial Inflation Explorer mission which will help scientists learn more about the nature and origins of this peculiar phenomenon.
