7. Why Did We Think It Was Flat In The First Place?
I'm sure some of you are wondering just how this whole thing got started in terms of the "shape of the universe". Mainly because it sounds like the idea of "Flat Earth", which is something that we still deal with today despite the fact that it's been proven the Earth is round for many, MANY years. But, for the universe, it's a slightly different story.
Because to truly understand the point of this piece, we need to go back to the earliest days of astronomy, where many people believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, and everything revolved around it. Then, we slowly realized the truth, that we orbited around the sun, and that the sun was just one piece in a very big cosmic puzzle. So when we figured that out, we started to ask ourselves, "What is the shape of the universe?"
The problem was that we honestly couldn't answer that right away because we didn't have too much that could look into deep space.
Believe it or not, the "Universe Is Flat" theory not only makes sense, it explains a lot.
6. Einstein's "Relativity"
In the 1900's, when Albert Einstein was helping shape the way we looked at the universe, he came up with a relativity theory that would give further focus as to how the universe may be shaped. But it wasn't as simple as flat, it was more...curved...per se. Basically, he noted that it would likely be very hard for the universe to be completely flat like a canvas. Not impossible, but hard. Rather, he stated that the universe could bend, warp, and shift based on gravity and the masses of the various stars, planets, black holes and other entities that reside within deep space.
5. So What Changed?
As with all sciences, there are many believes that seem to be backed up by the sciences we have at the time. But as history as shown, just because we know something to be "true" now doesn't mean that we won't find something that can later disprove what is going on in the thoughts of others. That's been shown with astronomy thousands of times over, and now, a team of scientists seem to have changed things once again by using the most basic of sciences to figure out the potential shape of the universe...they looked at the light.
Specifically, they looked at the Cosmic Microwave Background, also known as the CMB. What is CMB? Well, it's:
"4. Wait, How Does Light Help Show The Shape Of The Universe?
Ok, so we just threw you for a loop no doubt with the "proof" of how the universe is not flat, but you might not understand the science of what's going on with the light analysis and why we should care about it. So allow us to help you with that front.
The studies that have been done using the Plank Spacecraft and more seemed to indicate that the paths of light were perfectly parallel, and thus, the universe was flat, or very close to being flat. But with this new study, if the data is to be believed, that's no longer the case. It would indicate that the universe is closed, a sphere, and that changes everything we know about the universe at large.
3. Why Does A Sphere Change Things?
On the surface (pun intended), this may not seem like a big deal. "Why should we care about how the universe is shaped when it doesn't affect us here on Earth?" That's a good question, and one I'll happily answer. Everything we feel we know about the universe right now is based on the theories we've made about it. The theory of relativity, the way gravity and orbits work, and more. We feel we know things because we have stated that they line up with certain lines of thought. We've thought for YEARS that the universe was flat, every expanding, and full of various things. But clearly, that's not what's going on here. Or at least, if this theory holds up it's not what's going on here.
2. Does This Definitively Prove The Universe Is A Sphere?
That is the question, isn't it? Because as I stated earlier, history in regards to astronomy and the physics of the universe have changed emphatically over the years. We thought the Earth was the center of the universe, then it was the sun, then our galaxy and so on and so forth. It took quite a while to reach the place where we are right now in regards to our knowledge of the universe as a whole. But if that is proven to be a lie, that would certainly shake things up.
1. The Wonders Of The Universe
If there is anything definitive to determine from this newest piece of information about the universe...it's that we REALLY don't know as much about the universe as we think we do. Granted, there are some things we DEFINITELY know about the universe, that's not in dispute.
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