Did we hit another universe? Telltale 'bruise' in space hints so

Could our own universe have slammed into another one during its first few moments of existence, while it was growing? Scientists believe they may have found evidence of just such a collision.

 

New York University physics associate professor Matthew Kleban said the evidence could lie in a satellite image that could be considered a snapshot of the dawn of the universe.

 

“When they smack into each other, there’s kind of a shock wave that propagates into our universe,” said Kleban, according to an article on SimonsFoundation.org.

 

In turn, such a theory would support the hypothesis that ours is not the only universe - and may instead be just one of an infinite number of universes.

 

Kleban noted the satellite image, which was released last March, suggested half of the young universe was slightly coarser than the other.

 

Over the past three years, the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite captured a 50-megapixel image of light coming from all directions.

 

Each photon is imprinted with a record of the temperature where it originated more than 13 billion years ago.

 

Asymmetry

 

The image suggests the assymetry of our universe could have come the moment the universe became transparent - or some 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

 

Cosmologists believe quantum fluctuations at the time of the Big Bang became stretched during a period of exponential growth known as inflation.

 

The hot and cold spots led to the formation of galaxies and voids.

 

Toy model

 

The researchers presently have only a so-called “toy model” of the event - an inflation field permeating all of space transitioned to an unstable state about 10 to 36 seconds after the Big Bang.

 

During this time, space supposedly ballooned 1,078 times in volume before the inflation field restabilized about 10 to 30 seconds later.

 

Ideally, the universe should have stretched evenly, producing a uniformly random, speckled pattern of hot and cold in the cosmic microwave background.

 

“(But) on one side, the hot spots and cold spots are hotter and colder than on the other side,” Kamionkowski said.

 

The Planck map also strengthened the case for asymmetry and resolved the temperature fluctuations in finer detail, enabling physicists to rule out some explanations and come up with others.

 

It reinforced somewhat the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which first detected evidence that temperature fluctuations were more extreme in one half of the cosmic microwave background in 2007.

 

But at the time, some considered the possibility of the WMAP making a measurement error.

 

False trail?

 

But most cosmologists admitted all this could be just a false trail.

 

“This is a high-stakes game ... We’d really like to learn more about where our universe came from, but nature has not left us with too many hints,” said Marc Kamionkowski, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University.

 

Kamionkowski had proposed several new Big Bang models to explain the asymmetry between the two halves of the cosmos.

 

But then again, he said the asymmetry “might be a statistical fluke, (or) it could really be the tip of the iceberg.”

 

Theories

 

“If I were to bet and the odds were even money, I’d bet it was just a fluke ... But the point is that the odds are not even money. If it is telling us something about the early universe, it could be extremely important,” said Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology.

 

Also, cosmologists have advanced competing theories to explain the assymetry.

 

One theory indicates the asymmetry could be the result of a violent collision between two universes or between two points within this universe.

 

In the multiverse theory, bubbles would frequently pop up close together and collide. Bubbles could also run into themselves while expanding around a curled-up dimension.

 

The collision could then have triggered inflation.

 

Kleban said that if the shock wave from such a collision were seen cutting through the cosmic microwave background, it would be a smoking gun for the multiverse.

 

But the leading edge of the shock wave is more likely to have moved beyond the horizon of this observable patch of the universe, trailing gentler turbulence in its wake.

 

For now, the theorists must tailor their Big Bang theories around the data in hand.

 

“There are always things which you can’t prove because we just don’t have the technology yet. You just have to take your shots and do your best,” Kleban said. —TJD, GMA News