Planck

In sci fi, parallel universes are usually just like ours, but for some reason, Hitler won the war.

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But we might be about to have our first encounter with a real one – and it might be one of billions of parallel universes.

A new report suggests claims that a weird ‘cold spot’ in ‘background’ radiation from space could be the sign our universe once collided with another – entirely different – universe.

Research by Professor Tom Shanks in Durham University has dismissed one explanation of the ‘cold spot’ – that it was caused by a ‘supervoid’ – leaving room for exotic explanations like a collision between universes.

Shanks said that one explanation for their results could be that the Cold Spot is ‘the first evidence for the multiverse – and billions of other universes may exist like our own.’

The cosmic microwave background (CMB), a relic of the Big Bang, covers the whole sky.

At a temperature of 2.73 degrees above absolute zero (or -270.43 degrees Celsius), the CMB has some anomalies, including the Cold Spot.

This feature, about 0.00015 degrees colder than its surroundings, was previously claimed to be caused by a huge void, billions of light years across, containing relatively few galaxies.

In their new work, the Durham team presented the results of a comprehensive survey of 7,000 galaxies – and found no evidence of a ‘supervoid’.

If there really is no supervoid that can explain the Cold Spot, simulations of the standard model of the universe give odds of 1 in 50 that the Cold Spot arose by chance.

Tom Shanks said: ‘This means we can’t entirely rule out that the Spot is caused by an unlikely fluctuation explained by the standard model. But if that isn’t the answer, then there are more exotic explanations.

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‘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 of CMB data 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.’