不可思議的科學奇思:宇宙絕不止一個!

Ranga-Ram Chary, U.S. Planck Data Center's project manager in California, recently discovered a "mysterious glow" by mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background, otherwise known as the light that was left over from a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.

最近，美國加州普朗克數據中心的項目經理Ranga-Ram Chary，在繪製宇宙微波背景輻射圖時發現了一束“神祕亮光”，被認爲是宇宙大爆炸幾十萬年後遺留的光線。

Ordinarily, Chary would have found nothing "except noise." But the spots of light were 4,500 times brighter than they should have been.

通常，Chary的發現除了噪音沒有別的，但這一束光的亮度相比之前的高出4500多倍。

Chary concluded that the glow could represent matter from another universe "leaking" or colliding into ours. This would validate the hypothesis that our universe is merely "a region within an eternally inflating super-region," said Chary in an Astrophysical Journal study published in September.

Chary認爲這束光代表着另一個宇宙的物質“泄露”或是闖入到了我們所在的宇宙，他在9月份發表《天文物理期刊》中稱這一發現證實了之前的假設，即我們所在的宇宙空間存在於一個“不斷膨脹的超級大空間”之中。

Cosmologists have speculated about multiple universes for years, but have thus far been unable to prove their existence. Chary's research is therefore significant because it could lend credence to the theory that cosmic inflation -- which is the notion that the universe began inflating right after the Big Bang -- led to multiple universes.

多年來宇宙學家一直在推測多重宇宙的存在，但至今都無法證實。因此Chary的研究意義重大，因爲其證實了宇宙膨脹說，即宇宙在大爆炸之後開始不斷膨脹，最終導致多重宇宙的產生。

However, this type of claim would "require a very high burden of proof," Chary wrote. There's a 30 percent chance that the glow is nothing out of the ordinary.

然而Chary還寫道，這種論斷“需要非常確鑿的證據”，該光束是普通光線的機率仍然有30%。

Other scientists share this skepticism. Alexander Vilenkin, director of Tufts University's Institute of Cosmology, doesn't see how "this signal can be explained by a collision with another bubble universe." Any collisions must have been "more like little nudges," Vilenkin added. "But a collision that would greatly enhance the density of protons seems to require a much more violent encounter."

另外一些科學家對此持懷疑態度，塔夫斯大學宇宙學研究所主任Alexander Vilenkin認爲，這束光線“無法解釋爲宇宙碰撞的線索”。他說：“任何碰撞都更像是微小的震動，但要使碰撞能夠極大的增加質子密度，則需要更強烈的破壞力。”

"The supposed observations of a giant void and an apparently cold spot in the cosmic background radiation have so many types of potential explanations," said Jay Pasachoff, chair of the astronomy department at Williams College. He maintains that it's too premature to cite an alternate universe as the explanation.

威廉姆斯學院天文系主任Jay Pasachoff稱：“在宇宙背景輻射中觀察到的巨洞和類似的冰點都存在多種形式的解釋。”他強調引用平行宇宙來解釋這一發現還爲時過早。

"But it could also be something new and unexpected," Vilenkin added.

Vilenkin最後說道：“然而，這束光線也有可能是新的未知事物。”