The Universe: Infinity Phenomenon or a Limited Part of The Cluster?

natord (66)in #science • 7 years ago (edited)

The ironic joke of the famous scientist gave birth the perception of the Universe as a truly infinity phenomenon, for most people. However, as we can see, even within the joke, Einstein noted the fact that he doubts this statement. And many scientists are of the opinion that his doubts are grounded.

Infinity not only in space, but also in time

The infinity of the Universe implies that it must be infinite not only in space but also in time, which means- have a countless number of stars. I.e. we would not be able to observe dark areas in the night sky even from the Earth. Our own sun would be lost in the background light of the trillions of other stars that formed over an endless time in an endless space.

The center of our Galaxy. by VISTA telescope. source

The presence of dark areas in the sky in itself is proof that the cosmos does not exist forever. This is what tells us the Big Bang Theory, which today is regarded as the fundamental theory of the origin of the Universe. But at the same time, this theory limits our visibility of all events that occurred billions of years ago.

In fact, the figure of 13.7 billion years is not the real age of our Universe, maybe not even the date of the Big Bang. This is just an affordable maximum of our space studies capabilities, which scientists prefer to use as a reference point. We just don't have the technologies and knowledge to look deeper in time and space.

This illustration shows how photons in the CMB are deflected by the gravitational lensing effect of massive cosmic structures as they travel across the Universe. source

The relic radiation (cosmic microwave background- CMB) is a kind of barrier for our space vision. Science suggest that it appeared about 380 thousand years after the big bang. But in some ways this is just the earliest photograph of the cosmos, which we can get today. Behind this "barrier", that covers our eyes, there can exist both infinity and the boundaries of the universe.

Everything is possible In infinity

The other evidence in favor of the presence of the boundaries of the universe it is a fairly limited range of wavelengths, which we find in space.

In simple words: wavelength is the distance between the two closest points in space where the vibrations occur in the same phase.

If the Universe is infinite, then would exist waves with all possible lengths. But The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), designed to study the CMB, have not found any "super-long" waves in all the years of its work.

On this basis, the scientists suggest that the length of the waves in space is limited directly by the size of the Universe. Imagine a musical instrument with strings that cannot be longer than the instrument itself.

Planck (spacecraft) performs the same tasks that WMAP and is able to obtain more accurate information about CMB. But even he sees our universe is relatively uniform, without anomalous fluctuations in the radiation. , image source

To determine the exact shape of the universe and its limits we need to collect as much data as possible about all possible waves from different ends of space, and to conduct statistical analysis. This will take years.

But people are very impatient, especially scientists. Therefore, we already have approximate ideas about what form our universe can have.

The shape of the Universe

The Universe is... a doughnut. The fact is that this form has some physical characteristics that may explain our inability to define its borders. Any observer located inside such an object is not able to get out of it, because everything, including light, moves in a circle.

image source

It is impossible to reach the top or bottom edges of the donut for two reasons:

Vast distances, even objects at the speed of light will spend billions of years to overcome it. Scientists have suggested the approximate size of such a doughnut using the data on the wavelengths obtained using WMAP. According to the most modest calculations, the thickness of the donut may be 56 billion light-years.
The borders have the capacity of mirroring. The boundaries of the doughnut is capable of reflecting light thus creating the appearance of infinite space. I.e. not one device cannot correctly determine the boundaries of the system.

Graphical 3D model of the Universe 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS). visit source

Another popular shape of the universe in scientific circles is a spherical dodecahedron, or, to put it simply, a soccer ball. Twelve pentagonal curved surfaces, arranged symmetrically. And yes, they are also able to support the principle of mirror boundaries.

Our Universe is not the only one

Let's get back to more real evidence. The movement of galaxies and stars is already a well-known fact. According to standard cosmological models the motion of galaxy groups, should be randomly and chaotic, this is due to the gravitational influence of objects with different masses on each other.

ESO 137-001 Galaxy moves at a speed of 2000 km/s. image source

For example: The Milky Way galaxy is moving towards the constellation Leo at the speed of 600 km/sec. Our solar system moves at an average speed of 22-25 km/s, it revolves around the galactic center.

However, in 2008, astronomers discovered a strange phenomenon in a distant space. 1400 large galaxies move in the one direction at speed of thousands of kilometers per second. This phenomenon received an ominous name - Dark Flow.

image source

All these galaxies aspire to an invisible region of the cosmos, at a distance of 3 billion light years from the Earth. Scientists believe that somewhere out there, beyond our sight there is a huge mass, which attracts matter.

But, according to the Big Bang theory, all matter in the Universe was distributed relatively evenly, which means that in our universe there cannot be an object of such a huge mass, which is able to attract 1400 galaxies!

While we can't see what has such a monstrous force of gravity, scientists are building guesses. One of such theories suggests that dark flow is the influence of the neighboring Universe. At a distance of 3 billion light years, there can be the boundary of our own Universe, which is in direct proximity to another Universe, which has enough mass to attract such amount of matter.

tug of matter on the border of universes, just art. image source

Already well known to us WMAP, in 2007 discovered several areas with low background relict radiation, which indicates the absence of matter in these areas. According to scientists, such voids can arise due to the suctioning of matter by neighboring universes.

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Unfortunately, that is just a theory formed on a paltry amount of data, obtained from tens of observation stations. We are unable to say whether our universe has boundaries or not, and whether there is a countless number of universes around us.

A few centuries ago, we believed that the Earth is the center of the cosmos, and the whole cosmos is our solar system. Today, these beliefs seem to us ridiculous. Maybe in 500 years, we will study the nearby universes at different stages of formation, just as today we study clusters of galaxies.

image source

_{sources: Mysterious Cosmic 'Dark Flow' Tracked Deeper into Universe, Shape of the universe, Universe as Doughnut: New Data, New Debate, Naked science, Relic Radiation from Big Bang --ESA: "Contradicts Standard Model of the Universe", The 2MASS Redshift Survey, Are all galaxies moving in the same direction? If not why? and other references in the text. Images from Google Search.}