Flaw Found in Smoothness of Universe

According to ‘the standard model’, the universe is isotropic or, allowing for random granularity, the same consistency in all directions. Three new separate studies are now indicating an uneven pattern.  If this is confirmed, it would need a major change to current theory of the Universe and its early formation.

Initially Kate Land and João Magueijo of Imperial College London noticed an uneven pattern in the distribution of cosmic microwave background radiation, ( the cosmic hiss left over from, and providing evidence for, the big bang ).  Land & Magueijo have named this pattern, somewhat geekishly, ‘the evil axis’.

 Subsequently, Damien Hutsemékers of the University of Liège in Belgium analyzed 355 quasars and found that randomness of the polarization of their light becomes more ordered than expected near the proposed axis.

More recently, Michael Longo of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor analyzed 1660 spiral galaxies and found that the rotation of most galaxies near the proposed axis, is also extremely unlikely to be random.

Ideas for the cause of this phenomenon are already being mooted, including the possibility that the early period of ‘inflation‘ - a now widely accepted theory of super accelerated expansion soon after the big bang, may have involved an uneven bulge.

Article found at New Scientist