The idea of parallel universes has long been the stuff of science fiction and comic books, but now it turns out that reality could just be stranger than fiction. According to New Scientist, NASA researchers in Antarctica have detected evidence of a parallel universe born from the same Big Bang even that created our world though this parallel universe has a major twist: the rules of physics and time itself appear to run in reverse.
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According to the report, evidence of this parallel universe was first discovered in 2016 during an experiment that saw researchers use a giant balloon to lift electronic antennas into the sky above Antarctica. During the experiment, they encountered what was described as a “wind” of particles from space that were “a million times more powerful” than anything they’d previously seen.
It’s the energy level of those particles that seems to be the key to the finding. While low-energy subatomic neutrinos can pass through Earth, higher-energy particles are stopped by solid matter which means that such particles can only be detected if they are falling down from space. However, the experiment detected heavier particles — so-called tau neutrinos — that come “up” from Earth. The implication from the finding is that the particles are traveling backward in time and thus, are suggestive of a parallel universe as the only way the tau neutrino could behave as observed was if it had changed into some other type of particle before passing through Earth and then changed back — something that was described as an “impossible event”.
“The simplest explanation for the phenomenon is that at the moment of the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, two universes were formed — ours and one that from our perspective is running in reverse with time going backward,” the report said.
It’s important to note that while the idea of evidence of a parallel universe is fascinating, not everyone is on board with the findings. Peter Gorham, principal investigator on NASA’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna project, said that there were some skeptics and that it’s not impossible that there are other explanations for the findings, such as a malfunction with ANITA or the possibility of a new class of subatomic particles.
“Not everyone was comfortable about the hypothesis,” he said.
What do you think about the idea that NASA scientists may have detected evidence of a parallel universe whose time and physics works in reverse of our own? Do you think that there could be another explanation for the findings? Let us know your thoughts about the discovery in the comments below.
