Despite the size of the cosmos, there are numerous pieces of evidence that show its shape.
The universe has a form that astronomers can discern, despite the fact that its size may make it appear to have no shape. What shape does it have then?
The universe, according to physicists, is flat. Experts told Live Science that there are several lines of evidence that point to a flat universe, including light left over from the Big Bang, the rate of the universe's expansion at various locations, and the way the cosmos "looks" from various perspectives.
David Spergel, an emeritus professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University and a theoretical astrophysicist, has spent decades exploring the structure of the cosmos. In a 2003 study published in The Astrophysical Journal(opens in new tab), Spergel measured irregularities in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), light left over from the Big Bang, that were observed by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and later by the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft.
In a flat universe, the positive and negative energy levels are identical and cancel one other out. One would be higher than the other if there were a curvature to the universe. "A flat world corresponds to a cosmos with zero energy,"
In this instance, it was hypothesised that the universe was both infinite and flat by the WMAP measurements of CMB fluctuations. Spergel further limited the potential forms the universe could take by comparing these observations to those taken by the European Space Agency's Planck probe.
The curvature can be measured with some degree of accuracy, hence Spergel claimed that it is possible to assert with some degree of certainty that it is zero. "We can reduce the uncertainty, but we can only confine the geometry to a certain extent."
The rapid expansion of the cosmos, which is captured by the Hubble constant, is another factor that leads Spergel to believe the universe is flat. The cosmos was flattened, or at least as flat as it could be, as a result of the universe's transformation from a compact ball of substance to expanding outward at extraordinary speeds.
The so-called critical density also provides proof that the universe is flat. According to research from Australia's Swinburne University of Technology(opens in new tab), at the critical density, a hypothetical universe would be flat and finally stop expanding, but only after an indefinite amount of time. The hypothetical cosmos that would be denser than this would eventually collapse in on itself and be curved like a sphere.
The universe is flat and will continue to expand eternally, according to all measurements of the real universe, which is just below the critical density.
There is still more proof that the universe is flat: As it is isotropic, it seems the same no matter how you look at it. In order to determine the curvature of the universe, Anton Chudaykin(opens in new tab), a physicist at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia, and his team examined data on oscillations in regular, or "baryonic," matter as well as theories of how atomic nuclei heavier than hydrogen were created shortly after the Big Bang.
According to Chudaykin, "Matter and light evolve differently in various geometries, which allows us to deduce the three-dimensional form of the cosmos from observation data.
To an accuracy of 0.2%, the study, which was published in the journal Physical Review D(opens in new tab), concluded that the universe was flat. The researchers concluded in their investigation that the "facts we acquired indicate that the spatial curvature is consistent with zero". It suggests that our cosmos is unlimited within statistical uncertainity.
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