I have always wondered what it really means to be “trapped”. A feeling we all know, but which takes on different contours when we talk about cosmology. What if we were all prisoners, not of a cell, but of a black hole? It is not science fiction, it is not cheap philosophy. It is a possibility that emerges from a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The images captured by the Webb telescope reveal something strange in the movement of galaxies, a cosmic dance too coordinated to be random. Two-thirds of the observed galaxies rotate clockwise, the other third counterclockwise. An asymmetry that challenges the standard cosmological model and that, according to some researchers, could be explained in a surprising way: we are in a black hole. Just like that.
The Rotation of Galaxies That Upends Cosmology
The truth is that our current cosmological model – called Lambda CDM (short for Cold Dark Matter) – has been showing some cracks for some time now. It's not the first time it's been put to the test, and it's not the first time it's failed. But this time the evidence is there for all to see. Lior Shamir, astronomer of the Kansas State University and lead author of the study, put it simply: “Most galaxies in the universe, as seen from Earth, are rotating in the same direction.”
It seems like an insignificant detail, but it's like discovering that the majority of people on Earth walk backwards. It wouldn't make sense unless there's something fundamental we're missing. Il James Webb telescope, with its incredibly sharp eyesight, allowed 263 galaxies to be observed in the project JADES (Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey). About two-thirds of these galaxies rotate clockwise, while only a third rotates in the opposite direction.
Perhaps the advantage of this observation is that anyone can see it very easily simply by looking at images of the early Universe.
Inside the Cosmic Event Horizon: Are We Really in a Black Hole?
I black holes are born by rotating. What if there were simply more of them rotating clockwise? This could be a clue that our universe itself is inside 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.
But some theoretical black holes might be perceived as infinitely expanding by an observer inside them, while remaining finite and static in size to an outside observer. In short, we could be ourselves inside a black hole belonging to a larger universe: or rather, to a multiverse.
Of course, there is another possibility for this strange distribution in galactic rotation: the rotational velocity of our Milky Way could be influencing the team's measurements. So, while I am intrigued by the hypotheses of this study, I expect further observations to clarify this discrepancy.
In the meantime, we remain suspended in this strange cosmic limbo: maybe we are in a black hole, maybe not. One thing is certain: the universe is even more bizarre and mysterious than we ever imagined.
