{"id":213852,"date":"2025-04-14T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T20:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=213852"},"modified":"2025-04-14T10:22:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T20:22:38","slug":"universe-could-be-spinning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/04\/14\/universe-could-be-spinning\/","title":{"rendered":"¶«¾«Ó°Òµ<\/abbr> astronomer finds the universe could be spinning"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"galaxy
The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, is a spiral galaxy located 31 million light-years away. (Image credit: NASA<\/abbr>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new study in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society<\/em><\/a> by researchers including István Szapudi of the University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at M\u0101noa Institute for Astronomy<\/a> suggests the universe may rotate—just extremely slowly. The finding could help solve one of astronomy\u2019s biggest puzzles.<\/p>\n

“To paraphrase the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who famously said ‘Panta Rhei’—everything moves, we thought that perhaps Panta Kykloutai<\/em>—everything turns,” said Szapudi.<\/p>\n

Current models say the universe expands evenly in all directions, with no sign of rotation. This idea fits most of what astronomers observe. But it doesn\u2019t explain the so-called “Hubble tension”—a long-standing disagreement between two ways of measuring how fast the universe is expanding.<\/p>\n

Supernovae, Big Bang<\/h2>\n

One method looks at distant exploding stars or supernovae, to measure the distances to galaxies, and gives an expansion rate for the universe throughout the past few billion years. The other method uses the relic radiation from the Big Bang and gives the expansion rate of the very early Universe, about 13 billion years ago. Each gives a different value for the expansion rate.<\/p>\n

Szapudi\u2019s team developed a mathematical model of the universe. First, it followed standard rules. Then they added a tiny amount of rotation. That small change made a big difference.<\/p>\n

“Much to our surprise, we found that our model with rotation resolves the paradox without contradicting current astronomical measurements. Even better, it is compatible with other models that assume rotation. Therefore, perhaps, everything really does turn. Or, Panta Kykloutai<\/em>!” noted Szapudi.<\/p>\n

Their model suggests the universe could rotate once every 500 billion years—too slow to detect easily, but enough to affect how space expands over time.<\/p>\n

The idea doesn\u2019t break any known laws of physics. And it might explain why measurements of the universe\u2019s growth don\u2019t quite agree.<\/p>\n

The next step is turning the theory into a full computer model—and finding ways to spot signs of this slow cosmic spin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IfA<\/abbr> astronomer Istv\u00e1n Szapudi co-published a new study that suggests the universe may rotate—just extremely slowly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[34,35,158,9],"class_list":["post-213852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-astronomy","tag-institute-for-astronomy","tag-publication","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213852"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213854,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213852\/revisions\/213854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}