When I first read about the findings in an article published on the Telegraph UK website, I could not believe what I was reading. There have been theories and studies about the idea of parallel universes for centuries now. Some of our most prominent astrophysicists have, since time immemorial, speculated the same theory differently. But it all boiled down to hearsay and idealistic beliefs. I’m a firm believer in the parallel universe, that there is such a thing as a multiverse—a collection of universes; and not just the one we know and belong in. And so, I have always secretly imagined what life for human beings would be like if parallel universes were proven to exist and if we learned to travel through them. In a nutshell, that would mean being able to live out various different outcomes of one scenario through different universes. It would also mean, we could choose and know better about which scenario would be ideal for us. Or maybe, I’m just being too idealistic.

Anyhoo!

So, recently, something happened in space; something that has its roots in an incidental discovery back in 2015, when astrophysicists discovered a strangely barren area in our universe. Strangely barren, because, aside from the fact that it was much colder than the other spots in space, the area was also devoid of approximately 10,000 galaxies that should have been around there. They seemed to be missing.

NASA

This ‘mysterious supervoid’, as it came to be known, became the largest object to ever be discovered in space, according to István Szapudi, of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in a statement made about this discovery. The scientists also described it as too big to fit into the current model. They called it the Cold Spot. And that’s what it’s been called, ever since. Located in the area around the constellation Eridanus, in the southern galactic hemisphere, the Cold Spot spans across, is approximately 1.8 billion Light Years. Recorded to have around 20 percent less matter than in the remaining areas of the universe, the Cold Spot was discovered using Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) telescope located on Haleakala, Maui, and NASA’s Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite.

But, that’s just about the Cold Spot. What it means in according to the most recent studies is what is both, perplexing and revelatory, at the same time!

Experts at the Durham University, in England, have come up with some findings and theories pertaining to the Cold Spot that has kept scientists confused and mystified for years, now. According to these experts, a parallel universe supposedly crashed into ours, causing a shunting action; much like in a traffic accident when cars pile up on the motorway. The impact was so extreme that it pushed energy out of the huge area of space, creating what we know to be the Cold Spot. But, that’s not all. Scientists also believe that if our universe could have ballooned up into a vacuum after the Big Bang, then trillions of other universes, outside of our realm could have formed in a similar fashion; thus, creating a multiverse of universes which are beyond our own space-time; explaining why we have never come across this before.

Richard Dawkins.Net

According to Professor Tom Shanks, at the Durham University’s Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, “One explanation for the Cold Spot is that it might be the remnant signal of the collision of our Universe and one of the trillions of others.” He goes on to add, “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 – and billions of other universes may exist like our own.” Sources revealed to the Telegraph UK that the whole universe is covered in cosmic microwave background (CMB), a relic of the Big Bang which can be detected by telescopes on Earth. But while the temperature of most of the CMB is 2.73 degrees above absolute zero (or -270.43 degrees Celsius), the Cold Spot is about 0.00015 degrees colder than its surroundings.

University of Durham

The Cold Spot is approximately 3 billion light years away from Earth—a distance which, in space-time, isn’t all that far away in the cosmos. Prior to this discovery and theory by the experts at Durham University, the cold in the area was attributed to a literal trick of light. Back then, it was assumed that the Cold Spot was a supervoid that had 10,000 fewer galaxies and because of its innate barrenness, it somehow managed to suck the energy out of any form of light travelling through the spot which caused a shift in its wavelength the red end of the spectrum—something most telescopes mistook for coldness. However, with the latest discovery, the team at Durham also found that the area within the Cold pot is in fact made up of smaller voids that together, could not shift light to that effect to explain the previous theory.

ESA Planck Collaboration

Ruari Mackenzie, a Doctoral student at Durham University, affirmed, “The voids we have detected cannot explain the Cold Spot.” And, according to Prof. Shanks, “Perhaps the most exciting explanation is that the Cold Spot was caused by the collision between our universe and another bubble universe, believe it or not.” He insists that there has to be another explanation. “I remember some scientists suggesting that there could be detectable effects on the galaxy distribution after this ‘cosmic shunt’ of two universes colliding. Basically colliding universes could leave a slightly anisotropic galaxy distribution in our own universe - a bit like a pile-up on the motorway. So we can look for this to test how seriously to take these ideas,” he said.

The results found by the team of experts at Durham University were published in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and we can’t wait to read up on more findings of the theory. This could change everything—from the way we perceive our own lives to the way we perceive what lies beyond outer space, our Universe.

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Main Image: NASA