Scientists have discovered a mysterious ‘Cold Spot’ in space that could prove our universe is just one of an endless string of realities.
The Cold Spot is an area of space 13 billion years old and 1.8 billion light years across, which is 0.00015 degrees Celsius (0.00027 degrees Fahrenheit) colder than its surroundings – and this unfathomable mass ‘might be taken as the first evidence for the multiverse.’
Astronomers have been unable to explain the cause of this massive supervoid – and a new study conducted by Durham University claims it couldn’t possibly exist at all.
The co-author of the study, Professor Tom Shanks said:
We can’t entirely rule out that the Spot is caused by an unlikely fluctuation explained by the standard model [of particle physics]. 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 … proves this to be the case then the Cold Spot might be taken as the first evidence for the multiverse.
The new study suggests galaxies in the Cold Spot cluster around smaller voids that spread over the region like bubbles, and that there is only a two per cent chance that it formed randomly.
If Shanks’ assertions are true, the Cold Spot indicates that our cosmos contains an infinite number of parallel universes which, in turn, contain an infinite number of realities.
But this theory isn’t straight off the pages of sci-fi, as astronomy expert Dr Stuart Clarke wrote in the Guardian:
These uncountable realms sit side by side in higher dimensions that our senses are incapable of perceiving directly. Each alternate universe carries its own different version of reality.
There will be one where you wrote this column and I read it… even a really weird one in which Donald Trump uses twitter to spread nothing but amusing cat videos.
Brilliantly sassy and politically-motivated astronomers aside, this news could mean that somewhere out there, Rick and Morty are truly travelling through parallel dimensions and eating Szechuan sauce and that, on another realm, you could play Matthew McConaughey’s character in Interstellar.
The possibilities are endless and this is truly the most fascinating timeline.
Mind. Blown.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.