Observation data produced by the Planck Spacecraft Mission suggests the universe may not be flat, as popularly believed by scientists, but a sphere.
In an article published by VICE:
Most observational evidence favors a model of a flat universe, in which light travels across the cosmos in a straight line. But a team led by Eleonora Di Valentino, a cosmologist at the University of Manchester, identified a key piece of data that suggests space may be curved into a closed cosmic sphere, meaning that a beam of light would eventually loop around the entire cosmos to return to its point of origin. The team’s results are based on new data released from the Planck mission, a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite that operated from 2009 to 2013.
The Planck spacecraft was designed to map cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the afterglow of the Big Bang believed to be the origin of the universe. At 13 billion years old, it’s the oldest light in the universe.
According to Planck’s measurements, the CMB is being gravitationally lensed much more than expected. One possible explanation to account for this observation is that there is a curvature woven into the fabric of spacetime.
A flat universe remains the accepted cosmological model, but the Planck Mission findings invite fresh investigation that may challenge the popular theory.
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