Latest news with #JWSTAdvancedDeepExtragalacticSurvey
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The Entire Universe Could Exist Inside a Black Hole – Here's Why
When you peer out into the depths of the cosmos, a mystery lies there, waiting. In a survey of the deep sky, most of the galaxies are seen rotating in the same direction. This is a problem. Under current models of the way the Universe behaves, galaxies should be a hodge-podge rotating whichever dang way they please, resulting in a roughly even distribution of rotations. The fact that this is not what we observe suggests that there's something hinky going on: a huge gap in our understanding of the way the Universe works. "It is still not clear what causes this to happen, but there are two primary possible explanations," says astronomer Lior Shamir of Kansas State University. "One explanation is that the Universe was born rotating. That explanation agrees with theories such as black hole cosmology, which postulates that the entire Universe is the interior of a black hole. But if the Universe was indeed born rotating it means that the existing theories about the cosmos are incomplete." The other, much less exciting possibility is that it's an illusion caused by the rotation of our home galaxy. Although the Universe might appear pretty random at a glance, there is actually quite a bit of structure therein. Vast filaments of dark matter span the cosmos in a gravitational web that connects galactic hubs, for example. We had assumed, however, that the behavior of galaxies within that web was pretty randomized. That means that the distribution of spin directions of these galaxies should be more-or-less equal. Shamir's body of research suggests otherwise; previously, he has found evidence that the distribution of galaxy spin directions across the sky forms a distinct pattern. In the course of his research, Shamir has noticed that there's an asymmetry in the spin distribution; and, at greater distances across space-time, the asymmetry becomes even more pronounced. That means that there are more galaxies spinning one way than galaxies spinning the other, and the difference is stronger earlier in the Universe. For this new paper, he used data collected during the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) to study the rotations of 263 galaxies, whose light has traveled between roughly 5 and 10 billion years to reach us. There are only two directions these galaxies can spin – clockwise and counterclockwise. If the Universe is isotropic, or uniform in all directions, as described by the cosmological principle, there should be a pretty even 50-50 distribution of clockwise and counterclockwise galaxies throughout. When Shamir measured the spins of the 263 galaxies in his sample, he found an asymmetry that simply cannot be explained by chance: of the galaxies 105 rotate counterclockwise, while 158 rotate clockwise. "The analysis of the galaxies was done by quantitative analysis of their shapes, but the difference is so obvious that any person looking at the image can see it," Shamir says. "There is no need for special skills or knowledge to see that the numbers are different. With the power of the James Webb Space Telescope, anyone can see it." The notion that we all live in a black hole is pretty wild, and difficult to swallow, but there may be other explanations for the asymmetry. One possibility is that the rotation of the Milky Way galaxy from which we observe has more of an effect on our observations than we thought, making some galaxies appear as though they are rotating differently. That would be an oversight, but one to which the solution might clear up several other problems, such as the speed at which the Universe is growing. "If that is indeed the case, we will need to re-calibrate our distance measurements for the deep Universe," Shamir says. "The re-calibration of distance measurements can also explain several other unsolved questions in cosmology such as the differences in the expansion rates of the Universe and the large galaxies that according to the existing distance measurements are expected to be older than the Universe itself." His findings have been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Astronomers Stunned by Abundant Oxygen in Earliest Known Galaxy Space Is Set to Become a 'Wild West' as Outdated Laws Struggle to Keep Up JWST Detects Carbon Dioxide Outside Solar System For First Time
The Independent
17-03-2025
- Science
- The Independent
New Nasa data hints we could be living inside a black hole
A new study of 263 galaxies has provided fresh evidence to support a theory that our universe is the interior of a black hole. Using data from Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope, researchers at Kansas State University in the US discovered that the majority of the galaxies were rotating in the same direction. This goes against previous assumptions that our universe is isotropic, meaning there should be an equal number of galaxies rotating clockwise and anticlockwise. 'It is not clear what causes this to happen, but there are two primary possible explanations,' said Lior Shamir, associate professor of computer science at Kansas State University. 'One explanation is that the universe was born rotating. That explanation agrees with theories such as black hole cosmology, which postulates that the entire universe is the interior of a black hole.' Black hole cosmology suggests that the Milky Way and every other observable galaxy in our universe is contained within a black hole that formed in another, much larger, universe. The theory challenges many fundamental models of the cosmos, including the idea that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe. It also provides the possibility that black holes within our own universe may be the boundaries to other universes, opening up a potential scenario for a multiverse. The latest findings do not provide definitive proof of black hole cosmology, with more evidence required to fully understand the implications. Shamir noted that an alternative explanation for why most of the galaxies in the study rotate clockwise is that the Milky Way's rotational velocity is having an impact on the measurements. 'If that is indeed the case, we will need to re-calibrate our distance measurements for the deep universe,' said Shamir. "The re-calibration of distance measurements can also explain several other unsolved questions in cosmology such as the differences in the expansion rates of the universe and the large galaxies that according to the existing distance measurements are expected to be older than the universe itself.' The research was published in , in a study titled 'The distribution of galaxy rotation in JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey'.
