Is the universe really flat? New theory suggests otherwise

The universe still hides thousands of mysteries which the scientists on Earth have been trying to unravel for years. Now a new study on the shape of the universe has come up with an intriguing theory that changes our perception of the universe. The latest insight into the universe suggests that the universe isn't flat like a pancake, but is possiblyshaped like a doughnut.

For years, evidence has suggested that the universe is flat, but the new study found strange patterns in echoes of the Big Bang which point to a whole new direction. The weird patterns, scientists say, suggest that the shape of the universe is much more complicated than earlier perceived. The study further says that the suggestion that the universe is flat has never been fully tested by scientists.

Scientists explain that the way parallel lines behave dictates the flatness of a surface. In the case of Earth, lines of longitude start out as perfectly parallel at the equator before converging at the poles. The initial intersection means that the Earth is not flat. When scientists applied the same reasoning to the universe, they noticed that the cosmic microwave background (CMB) light, which was released when the cosmos was only 380,000 years old, is currently 42 billion light-years away and has tiny fluctuations in temperature.

When the predicted size of this fluctuation was compared with their current observations, it was found that these lights that started out parallel, changed directions over space-time, indicating the universe has a more curvy shape. However, the geometry of the universe still comes out as flat.

But a new paper suggests that past measurements into the shape of the universe have assumed that the universe wraps around itself in one dimension. Moreover, CMB observations also reveal strange, unexplained anomalies, in places where they shouldn't be, indicating that the shape of the universe is much more complex than thought to be.

(With inputs from agencies)

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