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Our entire universe might exist inside a massive black hole, say physicists.
Are we living inside a black hole? A few scientists think it's the best theory to explain pre-Big Bang reality.
By
Bryan Nelson
Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 4:36 PM

Image: Wiki Commons

Our universe began with a Big Bang some 13-15 billion years ago. On this, most physicists agree. But few theorists have ventured to explain what happened "before" the Big Bang, or how the Big Bang came to be. This is because the laws of physics break down at the point of a singularity, such as with the one that physicists claim composed pre-Big Bang reality.

But a few pioneering physicists are now positing a mind-blowing new theory that could forever change our perspective on the beginnings of the universe. Perhaps, they suggest, the entire universe — all the galaxies, stars, planets, everything — exists wholly inside a massive black hole, reports National Geographic.

This radical theory would imply that our universe is just one of many. It would suggest that our universe is ultimately contained within a much larger universe — a mother universe, if you will — which harbors the black hole we're currently living in. It's a wild theory, but it's one that is slowly but surely garnering consideration from physicists.

One such physicist is Dr. Nikodem Poplawski of the University of New Haven in Connecticut. He argues that singularities, like the ones that exist at the centers of black holes, have a physical limit, a point where they can be crunched no further. Such a point would have to be massive, perhaps the weight of a billion suns or more. But once that limit is reached, the immense compacting processes at the heart of all singularities must halt.

Then, like a tightly compressed can of springs, there's a bang; a very big bang. Perhaps the Big Bang.

According to Poplawski, the reason for such a limit (and, consequently, the universe-creating explosion that follows) is that black holes spin. They spin at near-light speeds. This, in turn, creates a huge amount of torsion. Thus, such massive black holes are not just incredibly tiny and immensely heavy, they are also twisted and compressed. The multitude of forces at work are so intense that a bursting point is eventually reached. This, Poplawski proposes, is how the Big Bang happened, though he prefers to call it "the big bounce."

Such a view, if true, would revolutionize how scientists think of black holes. Rather than being dark, foreboding chasms where the laws of physics break down, black holes could instead become conduits, "one-way doors," or passageways between universes.

As of now, Poplawski's theory remains unprovable — though it can't be ruled out either. At the very least, it's fun to think about. And it's a reminder of just how wide-open our current understanding of cosmology is.

Related on MNN:
• Black holes are 'portals to other universes,' according to new quantum results
• Scientists discover 'black holes' in Earth's oceans
• 10 incredible images of black holes

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/our-entire-universe-might-exist-inside-a-massive-black-hole-say

Astronomers claim to have found 'tens of billions' of rocky planets in our galaxy where life can exist

A handout released in 2010 by the European Southern Observatory shows an artist's impression of the atmosphere around a super-Earth exoplanet. A scan of small, cool stars in the Milky Way suggests our galaxy has "tens of billions" of rocky planets located like Earth in zones where life can exist, European astronomers say

NASA satellite image shows the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina region of the Milky Way that is 7,500 light years from Earth. A scan of small, cool stars in the Milky Way suggests our galaxy has "tens of billions" of rocky planets located like Earth in zones where life can exist, European astronomers say

A scan of small, cool stars in the Milky Way suggests our galaxy has "tens of billions" of rocky planets located like Earth in zones where life can exist, European astronomers say.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) says it found nine "super-Earths" in a sample survey of 102 stars known as red dwarves.

"Super-Earths" are rocky planets -- as opposed to gassy giants -- that orbit their stars in the so-called Goldilocks zone, where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold but just right to have the potential to nurture life.

In this balmy region, the planet is neither scorched nor frozen, and water can exist in liquid form.
The ESO team used a powerful 3.6-metre (11.7-feet) telescope, known by its acronym of HARPS, at their observatory in Chile's Atacama desert.

"Our new observations with HARPS mean that about 40 percent of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet," said Xavier Bonfils of the Observatory of the Sciences of the Universe in Grenoble, southeastern France.

"Because red dwarves are so common -- there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way -- this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone," he said in an ESO press release issued on Wednesday.

By ESO's estimate, there could be around 100 "super-Earths" in stars less than 30 light years from Earth.

In cosmic terms, such distances are just a flea jump, but they are an impossible gap for Man to bridge with current space technology.

A total of 763 exoplanets, the term for a planet in another solar system, have been found since the first was detected in 1995, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (http://exoplanet.eu/