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The Universe is a Sphere

9 November 2019
Astronomy

I quite like this one. At https://phys.org/news/2019-11-planck-space-observatory-universe-sphere.html … researchers from the universities of Manchester, Rome and Paris have sparked a debate amongst cosmologists by claiming data from the Planck Space Observatory suggests the universe is a sphere – it is not flat (or oblate like a pizza on a plate) as most cosmologists have supposed -as at Big Bang light expanded out in a straight line (or lines). The findings are published in Nature Astronomy (see https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0906-9 … ). The theory came about as they found the concentration of dark matter and dark energy indicated outward expansion of the universe – creating an imbalance. They suggested this would likely have resulted in the universe collapsing in on itself if it was flat (or expanding directionally) and therefore it would have resulted in a spherical shape rather than a pizza shape. The problem appears to revolve around measuring microwave background radiation – so a pinch of salt is required.

 

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