Extraterrestrial

The multiverse could be teeming with life

By T.K. Randall
May 14, 2018 ·  36 comments

Could we be living in one of countless habitable universes ? Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Kuroiniisan The idea that our universe may be only one of an infinite number of universes that exist within an overarching multiverse is something that has been gaining a lot of traction over the last few years.

Some scientists argue that the existence of the multiverse could help to explain the fact that our own universe should contain a lot more dark energy than it currently does.

Paradoxically, if our universe was to actually have more dark energy, matter would be diluted to such an extent that stars and planets would be unable to form.

Some universes, therefore, may have more dark energy and are unable to sustain life as we know it while others, like our own, have less but are home to the conditions that make life possible.

Now though, a new study has cast doubt on this idea by suggesting that these high dark energy universes may actually be just as habitable as our own."We asked ourselves how much dark energy can there be before life is impossible ?" said Pascal Elahi from the University of Western Australia. "Our simulations showed that the accelerated expansion driven by dark energy has hardly any impact on the birth of stars, and hence places for life to arise."

"Even increasing dark energy many hundreds of times might not be enough to make a dead universe."

If this is true, then it opens the door to countless universes teeming with alien life.

"The multiverse was previously thought to explain the observed value of dark energy as a lottery - we have a lucky ticket and live in the universe that forms beautiful galaxies which permit life as we know it," said Luke Barnes from Western Sydney University.

"Our work shows that our ticket seems a little too lucky, so to speak. It's more special than it needs to be for life. This is a problem for the multiverse; a puzzle remains."

Source: Independent | Comments (36)

Tags: Multiverse, Extraterrestrial