This new discovery challenges our current cosmological model and understanding of the universe. “…this might be taken as the first evidence for the multiverse – and billions of other universes may exist like our own.”

Experts have come across a so-called ‘cold-spot’ anomaly that stretches billions of years across, and they believe it could be caused by a collision with ANOTHER universe. The cold spot was found in the cosmic microwave background—radiation that was left behind by the big bang, the oldest epoch in the history of our universe—when charged electrons and protons first came together to form electrically neutral hydrogen atoms.

The discovery of CMB is hailed as landmark evidence of the Big Bang origin of the universe. Precise measurements of the CMB are critical to cosmology since any proposed model of the universe must explain this radiation.

In the last couple of decades, this ‘ancient’ radiation has been extensively researched by experts across the world. The CMB has a thermal black body spectrum at a temperature of 2.72548±0.00057 K, and as noted by the Royal Astronomical Society, it has some anomalies including the Cold Spot.

This ‘odd’ feature—about 0.00015 degrees colder than its surroundings—was previously claimed to be caused by a huge void, billions of light years across, containing relatively few galaxies.

However, according to a new study led by Ruari Mackenzi and Tom Shanks at Durham University’s Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy and published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the ‘cold-spot’ may be evidence of another universe interacting with ours.

The map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky produced by the Planck satellite. Red represents slightly warmer regions, and blue slightly cooler regions. The Cold Spot is shown in the inset. Image: ESA and Durham University

Scientists explain that the accelerating expansion of the universe causes voids to leave subtle redshifts on light as it passes through via the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect.

In the case of the CMB this is observed as cold imprints. It was proposed that a very large foreground void could, in part, imprint the CMB Cold Spot which has been a source of tension in models of standard cosmology.

In previous studies, most searches for a supervoid connected to the cold spot estimated distances to galaxies by looking at their colors. More distant galaxies have their light shifted to longer wavelengths, a phenomenon known as a cosmological redshift.

The further away a galaxy is, the higher the observed redshift. Scientists found that by looking at the colors of the galaxies—specifically their redshifts—they could calculate an estimated distances. However, these measurements have yielded results with a high degree of uncertainty.

In their new work, the Durham team presented the results of a comprehensive survey of the redshifts of 7,000 galaxies, harvested 300 at a time using a spectrograph deployed on the Anglo-Australian Telescope.

From this higher fidelity dataset, Mackenzie and Shanks see no evidence of a supervoid capable of explaining the Cold Spot within the standard theory.

Surprisingly, experts discovered that the so-called cold spot region— thought to be underpopulated with galaxies—is in fact split into much smaller voids which are surrounded by various galaxies.

“The voids we have detected cannot explain the Cold Spot under standard cosmology. There is the possibility that some non-standard model could be proposed to link the two in the future but our data place powerful constraints on any attempt to do that,” said Mackenzi.

This means that if the supervoid that explains the cold spot isn’t there, simulations of the standard model of the universe give odds of 1 in 50 that the Cold Spot arose by chance.

“This means we can’t entirely rule out that the Spot is caused by an unlikely fluctuation explained by the standard model. But if that isn’t the answer, then there are more exotic explanations. Perhaps the most exciting of these is that the Cold Spot was caused by a collision between our universe and another bubble universe. If further, more detailed, analysis of CMB data proves this to be the case then the Cold Spot might be taken as the first evidence for the multiverse – and billions of other universes may exist like our own.”

The paper can be found at https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.03814

Is it possible that everything we thought we knew about the universe is incorrect? According to new research, the universe is growing much faster than ANY theory can explain. Ever since the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago, our universe has been expanding, and it’s getting faster in its acceleration as it expands.

Scientifically known as the Hubble Constant, it explains the rate of expansion of our universe; astronomers have spent decades trying to quantify its speed. Now, according to a set of new measurements –most accurate ever—scientists have discovered that the expansion of the universe is approximately 8 percent faster than previously predicted, contradicting all known scientific theories.

According to scientists, the numbers do not fit into the measurements of the radiation left by the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

Why is this important? Well, this discovery basically means that if the measurements are backed up in the future by more studies, it could lead to all of the known laws of cosmology being COMPLETELY rewritten.

‘I think that there is something in the standard cosmological model that we do not understand,’ Professor Adam Riess, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, who led the latest study, told Nature.

According to researchers, mainstream models of cosmology suggest that there are competing forces of dark matter and dark energy which have fueled the evolution of the universe. According to researchers, Dark Matters gravity is believed to slow the cosmic expansion while dark energy is the force that pushes in the opposite direction and makes it accelerate.

This means that if the universe is, in fact, expanding at a much faster rate, than dark energy the mystery force that is believed to be responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe has become much more ‘aggressive’ since the beginning of time causing the universe to expand much faster.

Moreover, previous studies performed by Professor Riess and other scientists have demonstrated that dark energy’s strength has been constant since the beginning. However, over the years, these predictions have been in conflict with measurements of the rate of cosmic expansion, the Hubble constant.

Scientists are able to calculate the Hubble constant by observing the speed of which galaxies located in our vicinity are moving away from our galaxy, using stars of known brightness called ‘standard candles.’

The results were exciting. The measurements were within an acceptable error margin suggesting that the difference were ignored until now. Professor Riess and his colleagues studied two standard candles in 18 galaxies thanks to hundreds of observational hours on the Hubble Space Telescope.

The researchers looked at a larger sample of stars than before in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) pictured, the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way, to determine how fast the universe is expanding. They measured the value with an uncertainty of 2.4 per cent, down from the previous best result of 3.3 percent

The results? Well, the measured the constant with an uncertainty of 2.4 percent, down from the previous best result of 3.3 per cent discovering that the speed of expansion is in fact 4 percent faster than that predicted in earlier studies.

This has led numerous researchers like Professor Kevork Abazajian, a cosmologist at the University of California, Irvine to comment on the discovery.

According to Professor Abazajian, these results have the potential of ‘becoming transformational in cosmology’.

‘If we take the conflict between Planck high-redshift measurements and our local determination of the Hubble constant at face value, one plausible explanation could involve an additional source of dark radiation in the early universe,’ the researchers said.

One explanation according to researchers is that elementary particles that constitute ‘dark matter’ have entirely different properties than what researchers believed possible, which would automatically affect the evolution of the early universe. However, another option is that dark energy is not constant as it was previously believed and that it has become stronger in recent eons.

We know three things about the universe with certainty (this is where you brace yourself for epic kernels of wisdom): it is very old, extremely large, and pitch black (save for a few stars here and there). Naturally, it wasn’t always so old or large, but did you know that the universe didn’t use to be black either?

Back when the universe was young, when the lingering affects of the big bang remained very prominent, it was unrecognizable from its present form. Not only were stars and planets absent, but the forging of atoms—which comprise stars and planets, and all matter—hadn’t even begun.

Things eventually simmered down, and the universe finally became conducive for a plethora of things, including the feature known as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB), To this day, it still remains (albeit less spectacularly)—allowing us to look back at the earliest moments after the big bang.

Ultimately, the CMB dominated the early universe, and because of its properties (like its temperature and the wavelengths of light it absorbed), the universe appeared orange for a few million years.

This video explains how and why, along with providing an explanation for its current color (or lack thereof). It’s also a great lesson on the electromagnetic spectrum and cosmological redshift.