The universe is curved and not flat, new study reaffirms

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Theory on universe
Theory on universe

New Delhi : There has been a long debate on the perception that the universe is flat; but a new study has come up claiming that it is actually curved.

By flat, the scientist mean that if you leave Earth and keep travel in the straight line then you will keep going away from the planet in 2D.

While in a 'curved', or 'round' universe you'd eventually end up back where you started - much like a 'straight' line across the two-dimensional surface of a ball or a globe always ends up where it began, except in a much-harder-to-visualise three dimensions.

In a concept of flat universe, the photons of light must never meet while when it comes to spherical shape they would; exactly how lines of longitude on a globe all travel in perfect straight lines across the Earth's surface from north to south, and meet at the poles.

Scientists found an anomaly by looking at data from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), faint radiation left over from the Big Bang, according to a new study published in Nature Astronomy.

Some of the CMB light had been pulled off its original course - "gravitationally lensed" so much, the only explanation they could find is there's more matter in the universe than previously believed.

But this finding contradicts much of what scientists think they already know about the universe. The study's authors themselves called it a "cosmological crisis" and the two theories - curved and flat - "mutually inconsistent". 

"Future measurements are needed to clarify whether the observed discordances are due to undetected systematics, or to new physics or simply are a statistical fluctuation."

A lot has to be researched on the matter and a lot need to carry a proof before coming to a conclusion on this.