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Astronomers analyzing years of data returned by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe believe they have located places in the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, that may mark the locations where other universes have touched our own.
"Multiverse theory" proposes that the Big Bang that produced our universe is, in fact, a regular event. BBC:
The theory that invokes these bubble universes - a theory formally called "eternal inflation" - holds that such universes are popping into and out of existence and colliding all the time, with the space between them rapidly expanding - meaning that they are forever out of reach of one another.
But Hiranya Peiris, a cosmologist at University College London, and her colleagues have now worked out that when these universes are created adjacent to our own, they may leave a characteristic pattern in the CMB.
The Planck telescope will study the CMB in greater detail, and will help to either confirm or refute the current findings. Public data from that space-based observatory is expected by 2013.
At IdeaFestival 2011, Suketu Bhavsar, a professor of astrophysics at Cal Poly Pomona, will talk about the possibility of a “multiverse” and will no doubt touch on this developing story.
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