Scientists believe that they have discovered another Universe

www.newscientist.com...

Mystery 'dark flow' extends towards edge of universe

SOMETHING big is out there beyond the visible edge of our universe. That's the conclusion of the largest analysis to date of over 1000 galaxy clusters streaming in one direction at blistering speeds. Some researchers say this so-called "dark flow" is a sign that other universes nestle next door.

Last year, Sasha Kashlinsky of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and colleagues identified an unusual pattern in the motion of around 800 galaxy clusters. They studied the clusters' motion in the "afterglow" of the big bang, as measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The photons of this afterglow collide with electrons in galaxy clusters as they travel across space to the Earth, and this subtly changes the afterglow's temperature.

The team combined the WMAP data with X-ray observations and found the clusters were streaming at up to 1000 kilometres per second towards one particular part of the cosmos (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol 686, p L49).

Many researchers argued the dark flow would not turn up in later observations, but now the team claim to have confirmed its existence. Their latest analysis reveals 1400 clusters are part of the flow, and that it continues to around 3 billion light years from Earth, a sizeable fraction of the distance to the edge of the observable universe (arxiv.org/abs/0910.4958). This is twice as far as seen in the previous study.

The dark flow appears to have been caused shortly after the big bang by something no longer in the observable universe. It has no effect today because reaching across this horizon would involve travelling faster than light.

One explanation for the flow would be the gravity of a huge concentration of matter, but this is very unlikely. Within the standard big bang picture, massive cosmic structures were "seeded" by random quantum fluctuations, so overall, matter should be spread evenly.

There could be an exotic explanation. Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, thinks the flow is a sign of a neighbouring universe. If the tiny patch of vacuum that inflated to become our universe was quantum entangled with other pieces of vacuum - other universes - they could have exerted a force from beyond the present-day visible horizon (see "Nosey neighbours").

Yet despite the new findings, the existence of the dark flow remains disputed. Charles Bennett, principal investigator of WMAP says the cluster analysis is not statistically significant. "There is no evidence for the large-scale dark flow, using all of the best data available."
Nosey neighbours

Was our universe once entangled with a neighbour? The observation of "dark flow" in galaxy clusters was predicted in 2006 by Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues. She proposes that the effect occurs because our universe was once influenced by neighbouring domains (arxiv.org/abs/0810.5388).

Mersini-Houghton reasoned that if a force exerted by other universes squeezed ours, it could generate a repulsive effect that would impede the shrinkage of matter into clusters but not leave an imprint on smaller scales. "This skews the distribution of lumps so they are not the same in all directions," she says. "There is a preferred direction - the dark flow."

She also predicted in 2006 that there should be two "holes" - regions with fewer galaxies than expected. Sure enough, there does appear to be a hole - the so-called "cold spot" identified by the WMAP probe. The hole is a very large region of space where the afterglow is cooler than average. However, its cause - and even existence - is disputed, and Mersini-Houghton's hypothesis remains controversial.

This is an extremely interesting and important science news item. If this theory is true, it would have a tremendous impact on our view of our "universe". Perhaps our "Big Bang" was a rather insignificant "burp" in a vast array of "universes". It boggles the mind.

Quantum entanglements to existences we can not imagine.

Great stuff.

Oh that is good news!

I have been hoping there is another Universe...

Because so far, this one sucks real bad

Maybe there is a less temperamental God who pays a bit more attention in that Universe?

I can only hope!

If this is true, does that mean this universe could be completely different. Like a completely different law of physics, etc. I'm not a genius but would a different universe have the same universal laws we have here? Does this make any sense?

I doubt another universe would have different physics, I'd say physics are the same from universe to universe, I have personal reasons for saying this but could never prove it, I just think universes birth other universes forever, I can understand e.t. looking a bit different but they still experience gravity, and every other thing we experience just in varying degrees.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


could there be another universe in this dimension?

Would this constitute a "parallel universe"?!
There is a serious tone in my otherwise sarcastic question.
Pea's Out!

The interesting thing to me is how well this science lines up with people's experiences in life after death or near-death experiences. There are many people that describe this exact scientific data many many years ago. And the best part, the people with NDE's that confirm this all state we are about to go on the ride of our lives in the next few years. Our souls get to graduate from this world and we get to create something new.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

Yet despite the new findings, the existence of the dark flow remains disputed. Charles Bennett, principal investigator of WMAP says the cluster analysis is not statistically significant. "There is no evidence for the large-scale dark flow, using all of the best data available."

Sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings but the implication of the thread title is that another universe has been positively identified and is now established fact ... unfortunately, not so.

The "other" universe is simply one of many explanations being debated to try to explain the observed data.

This Is Not About Another Universe

I'm afraid the thread title is incorrect. The dark attractor, whatever it is, lies within the same universe as ourselves.

It just happens to be outside the visible boundary of the universe. The visible boundary marks the limit of what we are able to see of the universe. It is a sphere of radius 13.7 billion light-years with Earth as its centre, because the universe is 13.7 billion years old (and light, of course, travels at the speed of one light-year per year).

The universe is bigger than this, though. Maybe much bigger (we have no way to tell). And somewhere out in all that bigness is the dark attractor, the thing that's drawing these galaxies into its mysterious embrace.


[edit on 18/11/09 by Astyanax]

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


I wish NS wouldn't print rubbish like this. Like the WMAP principal says the best available data doesn't provide any evidence of the dark flow.

I could be wrong but aren't you supposed to use the linked articles title as the thread title?

i was thinking maybe as every galaxy has a super massive black hole as centre, maybe universes are being drawn to-wards a universal size or bigger black super hole?

This is sooooooooooo cool

Several posts have mentioned that this is not evidence of another universe. Well, that depends upon the definition of our universe.
Most scientists DEFINE our universe to be the matter that resulted from the "Big Bang". Given that, if there is more matter well beyond the boundaries of the non-dark matter, then it is very possible that the other matter is the result of some other event or process.
Of course, no one knows for sure whether there is another universe, but this evidence is tantalizing. For those that wish not to believe it, that of course is your prerogative, however, I posted this because I felt it might be of interest.
As to the title I used, the original title was from another site that linked to this article. Furthermore, the forum is Science and Technology, not an Alternative or Political Forum.

reply to post by Astyanax

It could be where our expansion area is coming into contact with another expansion area. Like two soap bubbles sticking together.

reply to post by Astyanax

It just happens to be outside the visible boundary of the universe. The visible boundary marks the limit of what we are able to see of the universe. It is a sphere of radius 13.7 billion

It is truly amazing hat so many members have given you a star for completely erroneous information.
Although we believe "our" universe to be 13.7 billion years old, the observable universe is MUCH further. In fact, the current visible horizon is more than TRIPLE that figure at 46.5 Billion light years away.
Rather than overwhelming you with the mathematics of the calculation, I've cited Wiki, which you might understand:

The comoving distance from Earth to the edge of the visible universe (also called the particle horizon) is about 14 billion parsecs (46.5 billion light-years) in any direction.[4] This defines a lower limit on the comoving radius of the observable universe, although as noted in the introduction, it is expected that the visible universe is somewhat smaller than the observable universe since we see only light from the cosmic microwave background radiation that was emitted after the time of recombination, giving us the spherical surface of last scattering (gravitational waves could theoretically allow us to observe events that occurred earlier than the time of recombination, from regions of space outside this sphere). The visible universe is thus a sphere with a diameter of about 28 billion parsecs (about 93 billion light-years). Assuming that space is roughly flat, this size corresponds to a comoving volume of about 3×1080 cubic meters.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

Actually, it's not so strange. They probably understand the physics a little better than you do.

It's true that, because space expands behind the incoming photons from a very distant object, such an object could now be anything up to 46.5 billion light-years away. However, the image that appears in our skies is of the object as it was when the light left it. That's all we know of it; what has happened to it since then is a mystery to us. We don't even know whether it still exists or not. All the information we have about it relates to a time when it was less than 13.7 billion light-years from us. The universe we observe is never more than that distance in radius, and it gets older the farther out we look.

The most distant object ever seen is a gamma-ray burst 13 billion light-years from Earth. Of course, the source of that burst is much farther away from us now--but we can't see it now, we only know it as it was then.

Finally, because of an effect of spatial expansion known as cosmological redshift,* objects beyond a certain distance are not visible at all. Their light is redshifted down to the point where they are invisible even as radio sources.

Edit to add: none of this should be allowed to obscure my point, which is that the putative Dark Attractor of which we are speaking in not another universe or in another universe; it merely lies beyond the visible boundary of this one.

Physics. Not to be learned simply by pottering about the Internet.

Second edit, because I can't resist, to add: by all means 'overwehlem me with the mathematics of the calculation'. I'll be happy to check your maths for you.

*not to be confused with Doppler redshift.

[edit on 19/11/09 by Astyanax]

reply to post by Astyanax

Edit to add: none of this should be allowed to obscure my point, which is that the putative Dark Attractor of which we are speaking in not another universe or in another universe; it merely lies beyond the visible boundary of this one.

One possible explanation of the behavior of the Dark Attractor is the interaction with another universe, ONE WHICH WAS CREATED independently of ours, which scientists, by definition, say is all the matter created with the big bang.

Imagine a large pool of matter, in which a rock is thrown. Now watch the ripples expand out from the center. Consider all of the movement from those ripples to be one universe. Now consider another rock that has already been thrown in the pool, far away from the ripples of the first rock. The space between those ripples are empty. Let's call that space the dark attractor. At some point, those two ripples intersect. We have not observed that intersection, as of yet, However, that does not mean that the second universe does not exist.

Now, if you wish to redefine all possible "universes" as one universe, then of course, there is no second universe. However, it would be redefining what scientists consider our universe to be, namely, all matter created by the big bang.

Great thread, thanks for sharing. On a side note, oh how I love the hyperspatial physics and cosmological arguments going on here about what constitutes a "universe", here according to the mainstream (and commonly accepted in theoretical physics communities) cosmological and theoretical physics communities are the four different types of "parallel" universes (notice "universe" is NOT capitalized unless it is a PROPER name, like our Universe, not another "universe"...Just saying.. )


Level One Universe

These exist in our own space-time and are simply an extension of our own infinite universe.This is based on the "Inflationary Theory",which states the Universe is constantly expanding on an infinite scale.Mathematical odds dictate that since the Universe is infinite in size then there MUST be infinite versions or copies of everything from particles,to planets,to stars.So yes that means infinite versions of Earth,you,and me.Obviously in each version our lives will be slightly or drastically different(if we live at all).The only thing separating us from 'them' is great distances,distances so far light from the closest one hasn't reached us yet,and won't for an insane amount of time(over the age of the Universe today at the least).For the Universe to be infinite it has to be flat and recent test show it is,although it could be curved just so ever slightly our test can not determine the curve(I think the Universe is curved and spherical).An example of just how far the closest "spatial parallel Earth may be is at least Googolplex yards away, a googol Plex is a 1 with a GOOGOL ZEROS behind it, best represented by the exponent 10^10^100. "!*

Level Two Universe

My favorite and most likely according to theories and data.In a level two universe our universe is simply one of a "Multi-verse",one of many "soap bubble shaped universes of infinite size".These float around in a exo-universal medium referred to by physicist as "Hyperspace"(cool I know) or "The Bulk".Within this Hyperspace bubbles(universes) interact,are created,destroyed,and spawn others out of themselves.Now here is the tricky part-within these level two universes there is an infinite number of level one universes!These bubbles form in Hyperspace in the form of "budding of like a fractal tree of spatial expansion of hyperspace and other universes(level two).The term physicist give to this creation process is "Bubble Nucleation".Renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku(who I believe recently was on ATS,and possibly active as a member)is the headliner for this theory,along with other well respected scientist.I also believe this theory to be correct.

Level Three Universe

Formed from the strange world and equations of "M Theory" this one does not disappoint.Based on "M-Theory,which is an evolved "String Theory" "M" means membrane and states the Universe exists in 11(count um') dimensions and is "tethered: to a "super membrane" of energetic matter by 6 or 7 extra,microscopic dimensions(curled up with in one dimensional strings[I know]).Our universe as well as others can be attached to a membrane or a membrane can occupy the whole of a universe.These membranes and universes float around in Hyperspace as well in M-Theory.Universes are formed by colliding membranes,which can be as close as a few millimeters apart.That is formation of universes,not parallel universes.In this theory parallel universes are formed by Quantum Probability,meaning that for every possible outcome of a situation a alternate universe is formed(you can see how this would become near infinite).These exist in our same space,but in different dimensions of existence.

Level Four Universe

Perhaps the strangest of all these are created by quantum flux or "brains clashing",so really they could be either parallel or original.The crazy part is that they could have a totally different set of mathematics and physics,in fact in some life may take forms inconceivable to us.Some universes may only support gas,no solid,or liquid.Or one of these could have totally different states of matter.Keep in mind "quantum flux" and "quantum probability" are one in the same they just refer to the many possible fluctuations or states particles can take.Quantum probability is just the mathematical interpretation of quantum flux.

In conclusion I feel that this advancement in physics is and will be beneficial to us all in understanding the grand complexity of our reality.One day it may even help us create FTL drives(if they don't already exist),time travel,matter changers,and a way to survive the ultimate end of our universe billions of years from now.At the least it is somewhat entertaining.Feel free to ask any questions or look for yourselves.

Here is part one of the youtube video of the show.It explains what I said but with animations and interviews.

For information on some material in this thread I would recommend Wikipedia as it is a easy and simple way to learn more about some of the theories and terminology in this thread.



Taken from...

On Parallel Universes

Personally, I like the "soap box theory" presented by Dr. Michio Kaku and others, as it seems to have some credence, well all it can for as little we know.

S/F...




[edit on 11/19/2009 by jkrog08]