It’s possible that an extremely advanced alien civilization has created a transportation network of wormholes around the universe — and we might even be able to spot them.

While it’s certainly a far fetched theory, according to a new piece by BBC Science Focus, it has some scientists intrigued. Take Nagoya University astrophysicist Fumio Abe, who told the publication that we may have even already captured evidence of such a network in existing observations — but lost them in the sea of data, leading to the intriguing prospect that reanalyzing old observations could lead to a breakthrough in SETI.

“If the wormholes have throat radii between 100 and ten million kilometers, are bound to our Galaxy, and are as common as ordinary stars, detection might be achieved by reanalyzing past data,” Abe told Science Focus.

It’s an alluring theory, in other words, that suggests one more pathway to figure out once and for all whether humans are alone in the universe.

In simple terms, wormholes are theoretical tunnels with two ends at separate points in time and space. While they don’t violate Einstein’s general theory of relativity, we still have no idea if they could actually exist, let alone if a sufficiently advanced civilization would be capable of producing them

For a wormhole to exist, though, it would take astronomical amounts of energy.

“Intrinsically unstable, a wormhole would need ‘stuff’ with repulsive gravity to hold open each mouth, and the energy equivalent to that emitted by an appreciable fraction of the stars in a galaxy,” reads Science Focus‘ story. The idea would be that “if ETs have created a network of wormholes, it might be detectable by gravitational microlensing.”

That technique has been used in the past to detect thousands of distant exoplanets and stars by detecting how they bend light. Whether it could be used to detect wormholes, to be clear, is an open question.

Fortunately, spotting wormholes isn’t our only shot at detecting life elsewhere in the universe. Science Focus also pointed to the search for theoretical megastructures that harness the energy of a star by fully enclosing it, or atmospheric chemicals linked to human pollution, or extremely thin reflective spacecraft called light sails, any of which could theoretically lead us to discover an extraterrestrial civilization.

The concept of wormholes is a tantalizing prospect, especially considering the fact that they could give an alien civilization — or even us — the ability to travel over vast stretches of space and time.

But for now, unfortunately, they’re not much more than a fun thought experiment.

Non-scientific versions of the answer have invoked many gods and have been the basis of all religions and most philosophy since the beginning of recorded time.

Now a team of mathematicians from Canada and Egypt have used cutting edge scientific theory and a mind-boggling set of equations to work out what preceded the universe in which we live.

In (very) simple terms they applied the theories of the very small – the world of quantum mechanics – to the whole universe – explained  by general theory of relativity, and discovered the universe basically goes though four different phases.

More importantly they discovered what came before this universe was.. another universe or more accurately another ‘cosmological phase’.

Despite being infinite in size our universe is cyclical and has always existed in one of four stages.

The universe is expanding, and the expansion is speeding up, but the team believes that certain modification motivated by quantum mechanics will ultimately halt the expansion and pull the whole lot back to a near infinite point – at which stage the universe will start expanding again.

The paper, called ”Non-singular and Cyclic Universe from the Modified GUP”, written by Maha Salah, Fayçal Hammad, Mir Faizal, Ahmed Farag Ali, is super complex but Prof. Mir Faizal  outlined the main points of this paper.

According to him  they have incorporated quantum mechanical effects in cosmology using an approach called the modified GUP. 

This approach  changes  the equation for cosmology  in a very interesting way. It predicts four distinct phases for our universe – the present phase of the universe being just one of those phases.

There is a phase before the big bang in this cosmological model, and it is possible to know about that phase of the universe by studying the physics of present phase of our universe.

Professor Mir Faizal said: “In our cosmological model the universe did not start with the big bang, but there was a phase transition from one phase of the universe to another. 

“This is possible because  the universe can  exist in four different phases,  like ordinary water can exist in three different phases. Just as we can know about the properties of ice, by studying water which has formed from it, we can know about pre big bang cosmology by studying the physics of this universe.

“Using our cosmological model we can study the physics of the cosmological phase before the beginning of our universe.”

In their model they have been able to  study the pre Big Bang state of the universe. The equations in their model predict  that the expansion of the universe will come to a halt and then will immediately be followed by a contracting phase.

Prof Mir added: “When the equations are extrapolated beyond the maximum rate of contraction, a cyclic universe scenario emerges. “Other cosmologists have suggested a big bang and big crunch scenario – but those model have singularities.

“Singularities are bad in physics as they indicate a place where the laws of physics breakdown, and at such places one cannot use physics to get meaningful results.

“This new cosmological  model  does away with such  singularity. The big bang singularity can therefore also be avoided by using the modified GUP-corrections to the cosmology.”

In their cosmology model, the cyclic nature of the universe occurs as a result of incorporating quantum effects into a cosmological model of the universe. 

Prof Faizal explained that even though there are many different mind-bending approaches to quantum gravity, like string theory and loop quantum gravity, what most of these different approaches have in common is that there is a minimum length below which space does not exist.

Many of these approaches also predict that there is  also  a maximum energy and no object in the universe can have an energy beyond that maximum energy.

They research team incorporated the effect of having a minimum length and an maximum energy  into a cosmological model, and then they  ended up with a cyclic universe.

Asked about the philosophical and even possible theological implications of his work Prof. Mir said: ”No one draws any philosophical or  theological implications of a finite or an  infinite spatial dimension, and time is just another dimension, so why should it be treated any differently.

“In any case, I do not believe in a God of gaps, with big bang being a big gap, but in a God who made the mathematics describing reality so perfect that there are no gaps, not now and not at big bang.” 

Prof Faizal has also worked on the Large Hadron Collider investigating doors to other universes.

The future of our Sun is a topic that captivates so many people. The age and life cycle, as well as its potential death date have been studied by scientists for years now but there’s still so much more to learn.

However, scientists have managed to figure out a few key points about the Sun’s future, including the end of its current life phase.

While the Sun’s final death is still trillions of years away, some scientists estimate the current phase of the Sun’s life cycle will finish in as little as 5 billion years. The huge star at the centre of our Solar System will have consumed most of its hydrogen core by that time. The Sun as we know it will have basically died.

The Sun will become a red giant as a result of this. Nuclear fusion will cease to be a source of heat. Around this time, NASA predicts that the core will become unstable and contract.

The outer layers of the Sun will expand as the core becomes unstable. Mercury and Venus will eventually be swallowed up by this expansion. Furthermore, the Sun’s harsh solar winds will slam into the Earth, robbing it of the magnetic field that creates its atmosphere.

It’s a terrifying thought to consider, especially for any life—human or nonhuman—that might survive all those years. Of course, there are a plethora of other threats from the Sun that must be dealt with first.

While the thought of the Sun dying is terrifying, there’s a chance humanity will not be here to witness it.

The Earth’s seas will be destroyed by the Sun’s energy in a billion years, according to scientists. The brightness of the Sun will have increased by about 10% at that time. There are also other dangers associated with climate change to consider.

In the end, scientists predict that the Earth’s future is bleak. That may explain why so many people are interested in space exploration and getting us to other planets. It would not only allow humanity to continue to exist, but it would also provide us with a new home to retire to when the Sun dies.