Scientists hypothesized that wormholes are bridges that connect distant regions of space and time. Now, some physicists believe that they could be hiding in plain sight, looking like a black hole that may have been detected already.
The small team of physicists from Sofia University in Bulgaria proposed a new model that may tell black holes and wormholes apart, proving that these mythical beasts of physics may have already been seen.
What Are Wormholes?
Wormholes have long captured the imagination of scientists, wherein part of the fascination has to do with the concept of time travel and that it is consistent with Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. However, scientists have yet to find correlates to wormholes in practical reality despite their theoretical plausibility.
According to Science Alert, Einstein's theory describes the possible existence of deep gravitational pits where nothing escapes it and can form impossible mountain peaks that are impossible to climb.
Unlike black holes, wormholes are glowing hills that would shun anything that comes near them by releasing streams of particles and radiation that there will be no more hope of ever turning back once an object enters them.
Nothing about wormholes has ever been observed before aside from the possibility of one of these white holes being involved in a Big Bang-like event. Nonetheless, wormholes are still a fascinating concept for exploring the edges of one of the greatest theories in physics.
Nathan Rosen, a colleague of Einstein, showed in the 1930s that black holes could connect to the steep peaks of a white hole to form some kind of a bridge. Other scientists say that such a theoretical link could traverse vast stretches of the universe. That means it might be possible for matter to ride this cosmic theme and come out the other end but less intact information under the right conditions.
READ ALSO : How to Build A Space-Time Bridge Using Wormholes
Detecting Wormholes in the Universe
The main problem in detecting wormholes is that these mind-bending structures are hypothetically almost indistinguishable from black holes due to the intense gravity they exert on nearby objects in space. Aside from that, it is not certain that wormholes exist, and the process of detecting them is even more challenging.
But that may soon change based on the finding of the physicists from the University of Sofia in Bulgaria. The team developed a new method to help scientists differentiate between black holes and other similar structures in the cosmos.
In their paper, titled "Polarized image of equatorial emission in horizonless spacetimes: Traversable wormholes" published in Physical Review D, physicists wrote about searching for specific signatures in the polarization properties of black holes to determine their difference from wormholes.
They studies images of suspected regions where wormholes might be lurking and compared them to those strong gravitational lensing and areas displaying polarized radiation. Based on these comparisons, they were able to produce a simplified model of a hypothetical wormhole's throat that allowed them to form predictions.
The Debrief reports that the model suggests that light being emitted by particles encircles a wormhole polarized by the strong magnetic fields they produce. But such polarized emissions have already been detected in the past years leading to the first images of M87 in 20129. Scientists have also captured similar detections in Sagittarius A* in early 2022.
Based on the model, M87 could be a wormhole, which could mean that they are hiding in many other black holes. The unique combinations of signatures described in the model could help detect more wormholes that could be hiding in plain sight all along.
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