Cosmology safe as universe has no sense of direction

The universe is expanding uniformly according to research led by UCL which reports that space isn't stretching in a preferred direction or spinning. The new study, published today in Physical Review Letters , studied the cosmic microwave background (CMB) which is the remnant radiation from the Big Bang. It shows the universe expands the same way in all directions, supporting the assumptions made in cosmologists? standard model of the universe. First author, Daniela Saadeh (UCL Physics & Astronomy), said: 'The finding is the best evidence yet that the universe is the same in all directions. Our current understanding of the universe is built on the assumption that it doesn't prefer one direction over another, but there are actually a huge number of ways that Einstein's theory of relativity would allow for space to be imbalanced. Universes that spin and stretch are entirely possible, so it's important that we've shown ours is fair to all its directions.' The team from UCL and Imperial College London used measurements of the CMB taken between 2009 and 2013 by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite. The spacecraft recently released information about the polarisation of CMB across the whole sky for the first time, providing a complementary view of the early universe that the team was able to exploit.