Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Traveling to planets in a galaxy far, far away – like in the movie Interstellar – may seem like science fiction, but what if the Milky Way was one massive conduit connecting to another far-off point hundreds of light years away?
This type of conduit, known as a wormhole, was depicted in Interstellar and, according to a new study, may actually describe the Milky Way.
Published in the Annals of Physics journal, the new study is founded on the latest research of highly-mysterious dark matter in the universe.
“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,” said study author Paolo Salucci, astrophysicist of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste in Italy. “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.”
Although Interstellar recently brought wormholes, also known as Einstein-Penrose bridges, into the public consciousness, they have been on the minds of astrophysicists for decades.
“Obviously we’re not claiming that our galaxy is definitely a wormhole, but simply that, according to theoretical models, this hypothesis is a possibility.” Salucci said. “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.”
What the heck is dark matter?
In the new study, researchers considered equations of general relativity as well as a detailed map of the dark matter in the Milky Way.
“(T)he map was one we obtained in a study we carried out in 2013,” Salucci said. “Beyond the sci-fi hypothesis, our research is interesting because it proposes a more complex reflection on dark matter.”
The study team noted that scientists have been trying to work out theories surrounding wormholes by looking for a theoretical particle known as the neutralino. The particle has yet to be identified by the high-profile particle physics experiments currently being carried out with the Large Hadron Collider by CERN in Switzerland.
Salucci said that confirmation of the neutralino may not matter, “…and perhaps it’s time for scientists to take this issue ‘seriously’.”
“Dark matter may be ‘another dimension’, perhaps even a major galactic transport system,” he added. “In any case, we really need to start asking ourselves what it is.”
In November, Cornell University researchers published a paper that essentially confirmed that many of the striking wormhole visuals seen in Interstellar are plausible, even if travel through a wormhole is a little far-fetched.
“We know (interstellar travel through wormholes is) kind of crazy, but it makes a good story,” said study author William Throwe, a Cornell graduate student.
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