According to international teams of scientists, the web of space-time is roiling around like a choppy sea of low-frequency gravitational waves traveling at the speed of light. Interestingly, researchers from around the globe all arrived at this conclusion independently and simultaneously: cosmic synchronicity?
“The picture that emerges is a universe that looks like a choppy sea, churned by violent events that happened over the course of the past 13 billion-plus years,” reported the Washington Post.
However, we may need to double that 13 billion since another report from EurekAlert! states the age of the universe may be more accurately 26.7 billion years. If so, it could reinvent cosmology, while the findings about the space-time sea could usher in a “new astronomical era.”
Related: ‘It’s Really Water’s World,’ Says Scientist Who Finds Water Defines Biological Matter
Earth is Bobbing in a Sea of Gravitational Waves
SETI astrophysicist Michael Lam described the churning sea like this:
“What we measure is the Earth kind of moving in this sea. It’s bobbing around — and it’s not just bobbing up and down, it’s bobbing in all directions.”
Thus, Earth is not as stationary as our human perceptions suggest. It brings to mind the atoms that make up all of matter, which are in a constant state of flux, as above, so below. Everything is constantly vibrating, creating cosmic music or what Einstein called the “Mind of God.” The study of waves backs up his theory of relativity.
At all times, a “low-pitch hum” of gravitational waves is always washing over the universe. Om. Aum. Amen, the holy Cosmic Sound.
Related: The Cosmic Web is Spinning, Bringing Order to the Universe
More background in the video by The Space Race:
Swirling Waves from Dancing Black Holes
What’s causing all the churning waves? Some scientists think it may be due to a “swirling dance” between two supermassive black holes, each the center of a galaxy, together called a black hole binary.
As the black holes swirl closer, slowly eating each other over millions of years, the extreme generated forces disturb the fabric of space-time.
Speaking of black holes, another report by Science Alert suggests an explanation for where they may have originated. Theoretical astrophysicists analyzing data from the James Webb Space Telescope and pulsar data suggest there were once massive suns called Dark Stars at the Cosmic Dawn. Three objects detected in three galaxies could be evidence of such stars.
These were the first generation of stars and are gone now, or have they just changed form?
Unlike our Sun, the scientists suggest these stars derived power from dark matter heating as it self-annihilated. Eventually, the Dark Stars collapsed into supermassive black holes across the universe, as the hypothesis goes. If these Dark Stars are now dancing dual black holes, their movements are sending a sea of choppy waves throughout the universe. They also may have seeded the universe with galaxies (see video below).
Or maybe, there are forces much bigger than the James Webb Space Telescope can detect at work? If so, scientist will have to wait for far more powerful technology to find out.
Related: Scientists Researching ‘Ocean of Waves’ in the Brain, Including at Death
Humorous video by Strange Mysteries about Dark Stars:
Featured image of Earth via Pixabay with screenshot via YouTube