![\"Cosmic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2007-0507cmbr.jpg\")
<\/a> Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. Image credit: NASA<\/p>\nPatterns Beyond The CMB<\/p>\n
The modern era of cosmic topology started in the late 1990s when we realized we could use patterns in the CMB to look for topology, Jaffe, author of the 2025 book \u201cThe Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos,\u201d told me. There were great strides with data from the WMAP satellite in the mid-2000s and then with yet higher-quality data in the 2010s, he says. <\/p>\n
The data has not improved much since then.<\/p>\n
But in the last few years, Jaffe and colleagues have created a group called COMPACT (Collaboration for Observations, Models and Predictions of Anomalies and Cosmic Topology), now comprising about twenty international scientists dedicated to thinking about this topological problem.<\/p>\n
Our work with COMPACT has started to put these results into the full mathematical theory and details of the possible topologies that could describe our Universe, says Jaffe. <\/p>\n
A true three-dimensional map of the observational cosmos would go a long way in identifying cosmic topology, beyond just studying anomalies on the surface of the cosmic microwave background. In other words, the gas, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies that astronomers can observe with the best telescopes. <\/p>\n
A proper three-dimensional map of that matter would give us even more information about the topology of the Universe \u2014 possibly all the information that we could ever have, says Jaffe.<\/p>\n
The goal is to try to see those repeating patterns, by looking at as much of the Universe as possible.<\/p>\n
As for what would be a telltale signature of cosmic topology?<\/p>\n
The existence of such \u201cidentifications\u201d means that two areas of the sky that seem to be far apart might in fact be close together, says Jaffe. In the simplest case, this gives us repeated patterns: for the CMB, it might mean that there is a circle on one side of the sky that has exactly the same pattern as a circle far away from it, he says. <\/p>\n
Jaffe uses the analogy of a three-dimensional torus, a three-dimensional geometric shape that resembles a ring or a doughnut. <\/p>\n
Imagine a circle that goes around the \u201ctube\u201d of a donut that would cut through the tube, says Jaffe. The existence of paths like this indicates the kind of topology we are looking for, he says. <\/p>\n
Topological Galaxy Clusters<\/p>\n
There might even be signatures of topology in galaxy clusters that mirror each other from halfway across the cosmos. But such phenomena will be difficult to observe.<\/p>\n
Because we know that the scale of the topology, if it is something like a torus, must be large enough that we can\u2019t observe those twins, says Jaffe. They are too far away from each other, and from us, to see both at once, he says. <\/p>\n
And even if we can eventually observe the cosmos on such large scales, this type of topological phenomena may forever be out our reach.<\/p>\n
Cosmological Fortune<\/p>\n We may also be fortunate, and the evidence for cosmic topology may be sitting in existing data, the authors write. Or it may be collected over the coming years in campaigns to observe the CMB, to map the distribution and velocities of galaxies and other tracers of large-scale structure, they note.<\/p>\n The Bottom Line?<\/p>\n We need to know the Universe\u2019s size: if it\u2019s too big \u2014 much larger than the distance to the CMB sphere \u2014 we won\u2019t be able to detect it, says Jaffe. <\/p>\n Sources<\/p>\n<\/a> The largest structure in existence \u2014 the cosmic web of gas and dark matter stretching across billions of light years, connecting galaxies (Credit: NASA)<\/p>\n