A newly published theory reveals that the Milky Way could contain a space-time tunnel, and that the tunnel could even be the size of the galaxy itself.
Based on the latest evidence and theories our galaxy could be a huge wormhole (or space-time tunnel, have you seen “Interstellar?”) and, if that were true, it would be “stable and navigable”. This is the hypothesis put forward in a study published in Annals of Physics and conducted with the participation of SISSA in Trieste. The paper, the result of a collaboration between Indian, Italian, and North American researchers, prompts scientists to re-think dark matter more accurately.
“If we combine the map of the dark matter in the Milky Way with the most recent Big Bang model to explain the universe and we hypothesize the existence of space-time tunnels, what we get is that our galaxy could really contain one of these tunnels, and that the tunnel could even be the size of the galaxy itself. But there’s more,” explains Paolo Salucci, astrophysicist of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste and a dark matter expert. “We could even travel through this tunnel, since, based on our calculations, it could be navigable. Just like the one we’ve all seen in the recent film ‘Interstellar’.” Salucci is among the authors of the paper recently published in Annals of Physics.
Although space-time tunnels (or wormholes or Einstein-Penrose bridges) have only recently gained great popularity among the public thanks to Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi film, they have been the focus of astrophysicists’ attention for many years. “What we tried to do in our study was to solve the very equation that the astrophysicist ‘Murph’ was working on. Clearly, we did it long before the film came out” jokes Salucci. “It is, in fact, an extremely interesting problem for dark matter studies.”
“Obviously we’re not claiming that our galaxy is definitely a wormhole, but simply that, according to theoretical models, this hypothesis is a possibility.” Can it ever be tested experimentally? “In principle, we could test it by comparing two galaxies – our galaxy and another, very close one like, for example, the Magellanic Cloud, but we are still very far from any actual possibility of making such a comparison.”
To reach their conclusions the astrophysicists combined the equations of general relativity with an extremely detailed map of the distribution of dark matter in the Milky Way: “The map was one we obtained in a study we carried out in 2013,” explains Salucci. “Beyond the sci-fi hypothesis, our research is interesting because it proposes a more complex reflection on dark matter.”
As Salucci points out, scientists have long tried to explain dark matter by hypothesizing the existence of a particular particle, the neutralino, which, however, has never been identified at CERN or observed in the universe. But alternative theories also exist that don’t rely on the particle, “and perhaps it’s time for scientists to take this issue ‘seriously’,” concludes Salucci. “Dark matter may be ‘another dimension’, perhaps even a major galactic transport system. In any case, we really need to start asking ourselves what it is.”
In addition to Salucci, the other scientists who took part in the study included Farook Rahaman (first author), from Jadavpur University in India, and a group of Indian and North American researchers.
Reference: “Possible existence of wormholes in the central regions of halos” by Farook Rahaman, P. Salucci, P.K.F. Kuhfittig, Saibal Ray and Mosiur Rahaman, 11 August 2014, Annals of Physics.
DOI:10.1016/j.aop.2014.08.003
arXiv: 1501.00490
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7 Comments
More clutching at straws…
Nothing new, and could be a better story without the dark matter to believe in too.
I have rethought dark matter and do in fact believe it is an alternate dimension, but not in the way many people think. You see, I believe that time flows in all directions and every one is forward. Think of light coming from a bulb. It goes in more than one way but every way is forward. The only difference with time is that there is no center or “bulb”. If this is true, then there could be whole other scenarios and worlds in every time flow. If time was moving forward in the opposite direction from us but still in the same space then it would exist in the same space as us but only for an infinitely small amount of time because every second happening in that time flow is un-happening for us. I believe dark matter is simply the “leftover” gravity of objects in separate time flows, which would explain why there is no particle there but a ton of gravity.
Oh scientist, could you please stop spreading things that only make dumb people even dumber? Please? The average person reading this posts are already borderline idiots and add this type of article only makes it worst. Next time you hear of crazy UFOs or conspiracy crap, you only have yourselves to thank for spreading bull like this.
Similar words were uttered to Galileo.
Doesn’t this mean that we live inside a distortion of time-space and that all we have measured, observed at great distances is indeed compromised because we didn’t know there was this distortion?
Einstein-Rosen bridge*