The Universe May Be Round

A paper analyzing data from the Planck satellite posits that the universe may be round, not flat as most cosmologists currently believe. However, as always seems tbe case with cosmology, there are other observations that contradict the Planck observations.

The universe might come in one of three shapes: open, closed, or flat. Parallel lines in an open universe will always move farther apart; parallel lines in a closed universe will eventually meet (and single lines will eventually meet up with themselves); and parallel lines in a flat universe will stay parallel forever.

Scientists already knew from Planck satellite data that mass in the universe was warping the the cosmic microwave background radiation, the farthest radiation our telescopes can see, more than the standard theory of cosmology predicted. Perhaps this is a statistical fluctuation or something wrong with the way scientists are interpreting the data—but it would be an incredibly unlikely statistical fluctuation, with less than 1 percent odds. Instead, the team led by Eleonora Di Valentino at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom posited that the observation could be explained simply by a closed universe. This change, however, would put plenty of other measurements out of agreement with Planck’s data.

I've always been fascinated by cosmology and will be following this story to see how it turns out, although it might be years before it's resolved.