One researcher’s analysis of Webb Space Telescope images could indicate that we’re all stuck in a black hole, according to research published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
“The main finding of the study is that the vast majority of the galaxies in the universe, as seen from Earth, rotate in the same direction,” explained Lior Shamir, an astronomer at Kansas State University and lead author of the study, in an email to Gizmodo. “That adds another observation that disagrees with the existing current cosmological model.”
The current cosmological model, called Lambda CDM (short for Cold Dark Matter), has faced numerous stress tests over the years. One such test indicated that data from the decommissioned Planck satellite would be better explained if the universe was round.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that “Lambda CDM is at least incomplete,” Shamir added. “Perhaps the advantage of this observation is that anyone can very easily see it by just looking at the images of the early Universe.”
Shamir’s study examined 263 galaxies in the Webb telescope’s Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES. About two-thirds of the galaxies rotated clockwise, he found, while just a third rotate in the opposite direction. Though the motion was detected quantitatively, Shamir said that Webb’s sharp vision made it possible to visually determine the direction each galaxy’s rotation.
“In my opinion we see a higher number of galaxies that rotate in the opposite direction relative to the Milky Way because of the motion of these galaxies relative to the motion of the Milky Way,” Shamir said. “The motion makes them brighter, and that is why we see more of them. But I might be wrong, and in that case the real Universe has more galaxies that rotate in the same direction.”
Shamir explained that black holes are born rotating, and it could be that there are more black holes rotating clockwise as a result. This is taken as a clue that our universe itself might reside within a black hole.
We perceive black holes as regions of spacetime with such intense gravity that not even light can escape beyond a certain boundary, known as the event horizon. Beyond this point, the densely packed matter within a black hole remains invisible—hence its name. But some theoretical black holes could be perceived as infinitely expanding to an observer within them, while remaining a static, finite size to an outside observer.
Thus, it also could be possible that baby universes reside within our own, beyond the limits of our perception and within a larger cosmos. In this way, so too could our universe simply be within a black hole in some larger, uh, universe, thereby challenging the word “universe” and introducing the whole multiverse concept. The idea is not new, but the study of galactic rotation suggests another line of evidence that there is almost certainly more to the universe than meets our eye in the form of light.
But there is another possibility for the uneven split in galactic rotation: That the Milky Way’s own rotational velocity has an effect on the team’s measurements. More observations could clear up the discrepancy.
In the meantime, expect JADES to yield more insights into the distant cosmos. In 2023, astronomers thought they may have spotted stars powered by dark matter in JADES images, and last year the most distant galaxy yet seen (which was weirdly bright) was spotted by the project. Suffice to say, JADES will serve up many more mysteries before we get complete answers.
