April 15, 2004
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Tales from Deep Space
New Scientist reports that the universe might be shaped like a horn. Like this:
That shape would fit with data from NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, a satellite the size of a car, launched in 2001, now stationed at a point in space between the Earth and the Sun. It monitors cosmic background radiation, the energy left over from the Big Bang.
Let’s just be clear: It’s a Volvo launched into space that has successfully made its way to a little gravitational cradle a million miles away, and now it’s detecting heat waves 13 billion years old.
And some scientists, looking at that data, are like, “Dude, the universe is totally a horn.”
How is this stuff even possible??
Anyway, the horn shape is pretty cool. The flare at the end has the spatial properties of the video game “Asteroids”: If you fly out beyond the edge of the universe, you just appear on the other side.
It’s still just a hypothesis. Meanwhile, the WMAP satellite is out there, tethered between terra and stella, staring into space, gathering more data.