All language subtitles for Through.the.Wormhole.S05E09.Is.There.A.Shadow.Universe.720p.HDTV.x264-TERRA

There's something
hiding in the shadows --

a type of matter
we can't see or touch

but is all around us.

Scientists agree it has shaped
our universe,

but they have no idea what it is
or what form it takes.

Could this mysterious matter

have produced stars and planets
of its own?

And could this dark cosmos,
one day,

come crashing into ours?

Is there a shadow universe?

Space, time, life itself...

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

Through The Wormhole
S05E09

IS THERE A SHADOW UNIVERSE?

We live in a universe
filled with light.

At least that's what it looks
like when we gaze into the sky.

But scientists are now sure

there is far more matter in
this universe than we can see.

We know this dark matter
must exist

because we can detect
the pull of its gravity.

What's going on
in this hidden world?

Could it have formed
its own dark stars, planets,

and maybe even life-forms?

And could this shadow universe

pose a threat
to our world of light?

On summer nights,

my friends and i
used to play with sparklers.

Their flickering lights were
so bright in the darkness,

everything around them
seemed to disappear.

It was easy to forget
their every move

was controlled
by an invisible hand.

An invisible hand also guides
the movement of our universe.

Astronomers are sure a vast
cosmic ocean of unseeable matter

is pulling stars
off their expected courses.

Discovering the true nature
of this unknown matter

has become the most pressing
question in cosmology,

perhaps in all of physics.

Experimental physicist,
raphael lang,

from purdue university,

is one of many scientists
trying to capture

and study dark matter.

We really know
all this dark matter exists.

We have no clue
what it's made out of.

But we know it's there,

and that's what
i'm trying to do.

I'm trying to find out
what is it made out of.

It's a huge challenge

because we only feel the feeble
pull of dark matter's gravity.

Its particles pass right through
the matter that we are made of.

So it's a bit like trying to
catch a fish with your hands.

So you can try to catch fish
with your hands, and, well,

that --
that's not going to work.

The fish is just -- just way
too fast and too slippery.

You're never going to catch
a fish with your hands.

So you need different tools.

To catch dark matter,

raphael needs something that can
interact with it directly.

The one thing we do know
is that dark matter has mass.

The particles we know get
their mass from the higgs boson.

If you can interact
with the higgs boson,

then you have mass.

Higgs boson particles
create an invisible force field

that fills the universe.

We believe everything
in our universe

gets mass by interacting
with this higgs field.

So isn't it natural to think
that maybe the dark matter

gets its mass also
from the higgs boson?

If that's the case,
that would be great,

because maybe then we
can talk to the dark matter

through
the higgs boson channel.

If dark matter does get
its mass from the higgs bosons,

raphael may be able to use them
as tools

to interact with dark matter,

and it would also make his
fishing trip a little easier.

Maybe the higgs boson
can act as a tool,

like a fishing rod,

that helps us to catch
the dark matter.

So at one end we are
and we talk to the higgs boson,

and the higgs boson,
the other end,

talks to the dark matter.

But as any good fisherman knows,

just because you have
the right tools doesn't mean

you're guaranteed
to catch a fish.

Raphael is working

on an underground detector
in italy called xenon 100.

It uses a large vat filled
with 100 kilos of ultra-pure

and highly inert liquid xenon.

Liquid xenon is very dense.

So the atomic nuclei --
they're really densely packed,

which is great because
it gives the dark matter

a lot of stuff
to interact with.

So let's take
some dark matter

and let's drop it
in the liquid xenon,

and let's see what happens.

As it falls in, it will go
through most of the liquid xenon

without interacting,

but maybe we are lucky,
and one of the xenon atoms --

it kicks the nucleus.

That xenon nucleus

races out of the tank
at high speed,

leaving a trail of light
in its wake.

We don't really observe
the dark matter itself.

What we do is we observe

the nucleus
flying through the xenon.

The team
at the xenon 100 detector

has been running the experiment
since 2008.

So far, it has not seen any sign
of dark matter.

But raphael believes
an improved bigger detector,

the xenon 1 ton,

has a good chance of grasping
this elusive particle.

So xenon 1 ton will be
100 times more powerful

than anything
that we have today.

What that means is that
we can do something

that would take us
a whole year

to wait and catch
those particles.

We can do that
in a couple of days.

If raphael is correct,

we may soon have our first
glimpse of dark matter.

But there might be another way
for us to find it --

not by catching dark matter,
but by creating it.

John butterworth is
a leading experimental physicist

at the university college london
and at the l.H.C. In geneva.

This colossal machine famously
created the higgs boson in 2012.

It has also created
every other particle of matter

that we know to exist.

Together, they make up
the standard model of particles.

The standard model
is our best understanding

of what we call
fundamental particles,

and that is stuff

that everything else
in the universe is made of.

But when i said that everything
in the universe

is made up
of these fundamental particles,

the big exception is
dark matter probably isn't,

as far as we can tell.

Particle physicists
like john, however,

have one idea for what these
dark matter particles might be,

but it's an idea that requires
you to spin reality on its head.

I'm on the london eye,

and it's a good place to talk
about angular momentum.

Angular momentum is --

is what you get when you
multiply the speed

of something that's going round

with the distance to the axle
that it's going around.

Fundamental particles
also have angular momentum,

which physicists call spin.

There are two types
of particles, matter particles,

all the tangible stuff
in the universe,

and force particles
that carry pure energy.

These two types spin
at different rates.

Imagine john is a particle,

and he's spinning
around the london eye.

If he's a forced particle,
he'll spin at one rate.

If he's a matter particle,
he'll have only half that spin.

But some physicists think

all the particles
of force and matter

may have hidden counterparts
that spin differently.

So, given that all the force
carriers have got spin one,

and all the matter particles
have got spin half,

it's quite a natural question to
ask, "what if i swap them over?

What if i made all the force
carriers have to spin half?"

These differently
spinning versions

of force particles
would, in fact, be matter.

The photon would have a matter
version called the photino.

The force particle john

would have a matter particle
called johnino.

So you would get a lot of these
produced in the big bang.

They would hang around
in the universe,

but they'd do nothing else,

and that's essentially
the description of dark matter.

That's what dark matter does.

John has been scouring

the mini big bangs
created by the l.H.C.,

Looking for matter versions
of forced particles

like the photino.

But john is beginning to worry

because so far
he's seen nothing.

We've not found
any direct evidence

for these other half
of the particles.

Now, there's still a chance,
but there's a lot less chance,

i would say,
than there used to be.

We can never hope
to discover a shadow universe

until we have dark matter
in our hands.

But this physicist thinks
he's on the cusp of snagging it,

thanks
to its cosmic dance partner.

To people who believe
in the supernatural,

ghosts are evidence
of a larger world of spirits

beyond our senses.

A few decades ago,

physicists discovered particles
that seemed like ghosts.

They move right
through solid matter.

They call them neutrinos.

Neutrinos could be the key

to discovering a larger world
of ghostly particles

making up a shadow universe.

Brazilian-born physicist
andr� de gouv�a

has spent most of his career
studying neutrinos.

Neutrinos look a lot
like the dark matter

in -- in the sense that they
interact very, very weakly.

Now it turns out
that over the years,

we learned enough about
the neutrinos

to know for sure that
the neutrinos are not

all of the dark matter
because they're too light.

Cosmologists have calculated

how much dark mass there must be
in the universe,

and they are sure
that neutrinos can only account

for a very small percentage
of it.

But there's something strange
about the neutrino --

the way it spins.

And andr� thinks that could mean

it has
a hidden cosmic dance partner --

a partner that may account

for the remaining mass
of dark matter.

All particles have an intrinsic
property called spin.

Now for the matter particles
that we know about,

the spin comes in two types.

We refer to that -- those two
types -- as handedness.

So some particles are
referred to as left-handed,

other particles are
referred to as right-handed.

So this is illustrated
by the dancers in the back.

Scientists believe the big bang

filled the early universe

with equal numbers of right
and left-handed particles.

All of them danced separately
and had no mass,

but then, a split second later,

the higgs boson
kicked into action.

It partnered up left
and right-handed particles,

and in doing so,
gave the pair mass.

Now, when the higgs boson
comes along,

uh, the higgs boson allows them
to talk to each other,

and it allows them to pair up,

and once they start talking
to one another,

uh, they behave as one particle
with mass.

This is how particles

like electrons and quarks
got mass,

but neutrinos don't appear to be
like those other particles.

Every neutrino detected so far
had been left-handed.

They samba alone.

How, then, does the neutrino
get its mass?

What we see behind us
is a left-handed neutrino.

Now, what's interesting is that

we've never seen a right-handed
manifestation of the neutrino,

but because we know that now
the neutrinos do have a mass,

it indicates for us
that the neutrino must have

a right-handed partner.

Somewhere outside
the reach of our detectors,

there should be
a right-handed neutrino

that is pairing up
with the left-handed neutrino

to give it mass.

Could this undiscovered particle
be dark matter?

They are, as far
as we can tell right now,

hypothetical particles.

But it's possible that

this right-handed neutrino's
a dark matter.

They're very, very weakly
interacting.

They're a lot less interacting
than the regular neutrinos,

and that's kind of
what the dark matter is.

It's some very, very weakly
interacting thing

that we haven't seen yet

that was produced early on
in the universe,

and then it sticks around.

The right-handed neutrino

would be too elusive
to be detected

in current underground
dark matter searches.

However, andr� believes

there might be another way
to find it -- by looking up.

Right-handed neutrinos
are not completely stable.

Like radioactive elements,
they sometimes fall apart,

and as they do, they create
a flash of x-ray light.

A very important feature about
right-handed neutrinos,

is that they came to x-rays.

So one way to look for

right-handed neutrinos
as dark matter

is to look at a region
of the sky,

and we see if these galaxies
are emitting x-rays.

In fact, recent studies
of distant galaxies

have detected
some strange anomalies

in the x-rays they emit.

These anomalies might signal
the border

between the world of light
and the shadows.

What's happening
in that darkness?

Some astronomers believe
they have found evidence

of a complex shadow universe...

...where ghostly substances
coalesce all around us,

even inside us.

But they may have oversimplified
how dark matter behaves.

Perhaps this shadow universe

is made
of more complicated material.

Before will dawson
became an astrophysicist,

he was
an offshore structural engineer,

but he decided to take off
his gloves and hard hat

to follow his passion
for dark matter.

It was a decision
that has him jumping for joy.

Will is one
of the lucky scientists

who has seen dark matter's
telltale fingerprints,

its gravitational effects.

So one of the major challenges
that we face is

how exactly do you measure
where dark matter is

if you can't see it?
It doesn't emit light.

So what we use is a technique
called gravitational lensing,

and the basic principle
behind this

is that under
a normal circumstance,

a flat space-time,

light always travels
in straight lines.

However, when you introduce
a mass to this space-time,

this space-time gets curved
and distorted,

and light actually follows
the curvature of that space.

This gravitational
distortion of light by mass

allows astronomers like will

to find the position of giant
cosmic clouds of dark matter.

They look for double images
of more distant galaxies

whose light is being bent around
either side of the clouds.

Two particular clouds
of dark matter

caught will's attention.

The clouds were part
of the bullet cluster,

a collision
of two galaxy clusters

a few billion light-years
from earth.

Each galaxy cluster

is composed of hundreds
or thousands of galaxies.

When these two cosmic giants
collided...

...the galaxies themselves moved
right past one another

because they were
millions of light-years apart.

But the diffuse clouds
of hydrogen and helium gas

surrounding the galaxies
barreled right into one another.

The force of electromagnetism

caused their atoms to explode
into a bullet-shaped inferno,

but the dark matter clouds
were unfazed by all this.

They sailed
right through one another.

They didn't feel the powerful
force of electromagnetism

that regular matter feels,

only the incredibly weak force
of gravity.

Will wondered why such
a huge portion of our universe

would be so oblivious to what is
happening all around it.

Is dark matter
really just dumb matter?

We know that it interacts
via gravity,

and now the question is,

is dark matter
more interesting than that?

Is the dark universe
much more complex

than it is at first sight?

Will formed
a collaboration to find out

if the accepted interpretation
of the bullet cluster collision

oversimplified
what dark matter does.

Is this the cluster

that has the dark matter
in the middle or no?

Uh, it has dark matter
in middle,

but it's not the same thing
that...

the group
is looking at many more

colliding galaxy clusters.

They want to see if dark matter

always passes
right through itself

and stays lined up
with its original galaxies.

And so what
we're trying to do is measure

whether there's an offset
between the galaxies

and the dark matter.

If we observe an offset,

then that's clear evidence

that dark matter
is interacting with itself.

There was one galaxy cluster

that had their attention.

It was like the bullet cluster
but older and slower.

So they called it
the musket ball.

The musket ball cluster
is much further progressed

in its merger phase.

The bullet cluster
you almost see right after

the two clusters
have passed through one another,

whereas the musket ball cluster
has had more time to separate.

Just as a plate
of italian food has sauce,

meatballs, and pasta,

a galaxy cluster has gas...

galaxies...

and dark matter.

And just as
theoretical disagreements

over a meal can get heated,

ingredients in a galaxy cluster
have a tendency to get...

a little messy.

A galaxy cluster is a lot like
our food fight we just had.

Not only are these galaxy
clusters mergers very messy,

but the galaxies -- there's just
so much space in between them.

They're a lot like
the meatballs

that -- that just pass
right on through.

The gas, however, is a lot
like the sauce,

which,
whenever we threw it,

a lot of it collided
and got stuck in the middle.

And the dark matter --

it's a little bit like the pasta
that we were dealing with,

where most of the pasta
misses one another.

But if you look
closely enough,

some of the dark matter
is interacting,

and it might slow down
a little bit

with respect
to the rest of it.

When dark matter meets
dark matter in the musket ball,

will's team found that
some force beyond gravity

appears to be at play.

If they can find more examples
to support this idea,

they may be knocking on the door
of the shadow universe.

If we see the same type
of offset in these other mergers

that we've observed
in the musket ball cluster,

it provides clear evidence that
dark matter is self-interacting

during the merger,

which would then mean that there
is some new dark sector force.

Theoretical cosmologist
james bullock

is trying to help will
understand

what dark matter is up to.

He is simulating what
galaxy cluster collisions

should look like
with different types

and strengths of forces
between dark matter particles.

The main thing that
i'm trying to do is interpret

the kind of observations
that -- that will makes.

So for example,
we can set up a system

of colliding galaxy clusters
that are zooming

towards each other,

and we can run
the simulation one time

where we turn the dark matter
interactions off completely.

And then, we can run it again,
except this time,

we dial the dark matter
self-interaction up

and see what happens.

And the question is, which one
does the universe look like?

James' simulations
are showing

that dark matter must interact
with itself,

otherwise our universe

would look very different
than it does.

If dark matter can interact
with itself,

could it have formed
into solid objects?

Perhaps a parallel version
of the stars, planets,

and universe that we know?

What if those objects
are out there,

floating invisibly
in the darkness

on a collision course
with our planet?

When you look
at your reflection,

you see yourself,
but it's not quite the same.

Your nose looks shifted.
Your eyes appear unbalanced.

Some physicists believe
the big bang

created particles
in mirror-image pairs.

But those reflections
became so distorted

that they're barely
recognizable.

Those mirror particles
could be dark matter.

What would happen

if you and your reflection
made contact?

Robert foot
from the university of melbourne

thinks dark matter has already
come hurtling into our world.

He believes we may have already
experienced it

blasting its way
into earth's atmosphere...

and that giant lumps
of dark matter

could be buried beneath
the surface of our planet.

Robert's suspicion is based
on the idea

that the universe is
supposed to be symmetrical.

It's something
that's easily explained

in a gentlemanly game
of lawn bowling.

Whether i bowl
with my right hand...

or whether i bowl
with my left hand...

the effect is the same.

When robert
accelerates the bowls,

the physical force he exerts
has the same effect

no matter which hand he uses.

The same is mostly true when
left and right-handed particles

interact with the fundamental
forces of nature.

When a left-handed
and a right-handed particle

feel the electromagnetic force,
they react the same way.

The same is true
for the strong force

which binds the nuclei of atoms
together.

Regardless
of the particles' handedness,

the forces should
affect it the same way.

But there is one force
that doesn't obey

the left, right symmetry --

the force that causes
radioactive decay --

the weak force.

With weak interactions,
if i bowl with my left hand,

the ball hits the target.

If i bowl with my right hand,

the ball goes right
through the target.

Robert thinks this anomaly

could be a vital clue
to understanding dark matter.

In order to restore the symmetry
of the universe,

we need to take a hard look
in the mirror.

I'm looking in the mirror.

I'm almost symmetrical,
but i'm not quite.

Problem is, my watch --

it's on my left hand.

In the mirror,
it's on my right hand.

Robert is like the weak force,

forever stuck with a watch
on his left hand,

but he has found a way
to fix this asymmetry --

by introducing another version
of himself.

Imagine if i had a twin,

and this watch
is not on the left hand...

but was on the right hand.

Robert thinks
elementary particles

could work the same way.

To make the universe
truly symmetrical,

robert and his colleagues
believe

there must be a mirror image
of the weak force,

and it must act on mirror image
particles called mirror matter.

Every particle has
a twin particle.

Just like
ordinary particles couple

with their left-handed spins,

mirror particles will couple
with right-handed spins.

Mirror matter particles
would be stable

and completely invisible to us,

just like dark matter.

So, if they exist,

robert and his colleagues think
they could be dark matter,

but their existence would also
have much larger implications.

It would mean that everything
in our universe is mirrored

in a realm we can't see.

So, in principle, you could have
mirror star formation,

mirror supernova,

and basically everything that
happens with ordinary matter

can, in principle,
happen with mirror matter.

Mirror planets, stars,
and galaxies

may occupy the same space

as regular matter
inside our universe,

but these mirror structures
would be invisible to us.

They would pass right through
the matter that we know.

Without any obvious means

of interacting
with the shadow realm,

how will we ever know
if robert is correct?

The proof of his theory

may have already come crashing
towards earth

in the form
of a mirror matter asteroid.

When the solar system formed,

there was a much more spread out
bunch of particles,

and if it captured
enough mirror matter,

then they could form asteroids,

and they could be there
in our solar system today,

and occasionally
they might strike earth

and lead to all sorts of
fascinating impacted things.

If a mirror matter asteroid

only responds
to the force of gravity,

it would pass through
the surface of the planet

without our even knowing it.

But robert believes
there is one way

that mirror matter
and regular matter can interact.

As mirror photon
from the asteroid

rub up against ordinary photon
on earth,

the two particles
can create friction.

That friction would generate
enough heat to turn the asteroid

into a fireball
and gradually slow it down.

Eventually, the asteroid would
come to a stop inside the earth.

This could actually stop
the asteroid in the earth,

and all the energy
will be released,

but over a longer distance.

So it -- it may not leave
a crater,

but it can still release
the energy.

So it might melt the ground.

In 1932,

explorers found some
very strange melted glass

lying on the top layer of sand
dunes in the desert of libya.

They looked like
they had been melted

by the fiery impact
of an asteroid,

but there's no crater
to be found.

Could this be a sign

of a rare mirror matter asteroid
crashing into earth?

There's no crater.

There's no obvious
impact event there,

but it's a great mystery,

and this is --
seems one explanation.

Mirror matter
and mirror asteroids

might sound like
science fiction,

but robert contends
they are no stranger

than accepting
an asymmetric universe.

But if the shadow universe
is headed toward us,

we'll need to know where
it's hiding.

This physicist is taking a shot
at making a map of dark matter.

She's designing
the most sensitive detector

ever dreamed of.

The first seafaring explorers
set off into the vast oceans

with no idea when they would
make landfall again.

Today, we can map our globe
to the centimeter,

revealing where we are

and even the slow tectonic
movements of continents.

Our maps tell us
the history of our planet

and help us predict
the future.

So how can we understand
the shadow universe

without a map of dark matter?

University of michigan professor
of physics katie freese

thinks it's about time
that we made that map.

To do this,

we need to build a device to
take a picture of dark matter.

I'm sitting here
in a giant camera obscura.

We're looking at light coming
to us from the sun outside

as it passes
through the trees,

and then,
it's captured in a pinhole

and redirected
onto the screen.

What we can do here
with the camera obscura

is also learn
about the direction

that the light came from.

All dark matter
hunting devices to date

have been simple detectors.

They can't tell
the particle's trajectories.

Katie is planning to build
a device

that will trace the incoming
paths of dark matter

so she can map
where they're coming from.

Her dark matter camera has
a whole new kind of lens --

d.N.A.

We start with quadrillions
of d.N.A. Strands attached

to a thin plate of gold.

Then when the dark matter
particle comes along,

it strikes the gold plate.

Then, your dark matter particle
would knock a gold atom forward

into hanging strands
of d.N.A.

Katie's detector
is part physics, part biology,

and the method it uses
to find dark matter's path

is a form of forensics.

We built a model
of our dark matter detector

with the d.N.A.,
And it has three parts.

We have the hanging strands
of d.N.A.

We have the gold projectile,

the atoms that have traveled
through the d.N.A.,

And i...am the dark matter.

Just like an aimed gun

propels a gold pellet
on a precise path,

when a dark matter particle
flying in from outer space

strikes a gold atom,

it will send it flying forward
along the same trajectory.

As the speeding gold atom tears

through the quadrillions
of d.N.A. Strands,

it sends cleanly cut fragments
of d.N.A. To the floor.

Well, that was fun,
and it worked perfectly.

The gold projectile
came in here,

and we can see that it
broke the d.N.A. Strands

as it moved through.

So now what we can do

is take those broken d.N.A.
Strands and analyze 'em.

For each one
of these strands,

we know the order
of the d.N.A. Nucleotides --

the a, g, c, and so on.

So we can figure out

exactly where this segment
of d.N.A. Was broken.

As katie analyzes

hundreds
of broken d.N.A. Strands,

she is able to reconstruct
the path of the gold atom,

and thus, the original path
of the dark matter particle.

D.N.A. Is the perfect material
for this kind of experiment.

The accuracy you can get
using d.N.A.

Is a thousand times better

than anything that
we've ever had before.

Over time,
countless dark matter particles

will propel
countless gold atoms,

each cutting a unique path
through the d.N.A. Field.

From those paths,

katie can slowly build up
a picture

of where the dark matter
particles are coming from.

Going backwards,
we can figure out

the angle that the gold bullet
came in through.

So we know where
all the dark matter is

and where it's coming from,
what it's doing...

physicists are getting
closer to detecting dark matter

and to knowing the shape
of the shadow universe.

But could this shadow itself
have a shadow?

We and the shadow universe

could both be controlled
by an even darker entity --

one that exists
beyond the edge of creation.

Space probes have now revealed

how our universe looked
right after the big bang.

They show matter and dark matter

spread around equally
in all directions,

but look a little closer,

and there appears
to be a crack in the sky --

a line that suggests

one side of the universe
is different from the other.

Is there something bigger out
there beyond what we can see?

A shadow that molds our universe

and controls everything
we know?

Dragan huterer is a cosmologist
at ann arbor, michigan.

He was one of the first
to notice

this wrinkle
in the universal echo

of the big bang, called
the cosmic microwave background.

Cosmic microwave background

is the radiation left over
from the big bang.

So when the universe
was very small and young

about 14 billion years ago,

it was like a dense soup
filled with particles.

As the universe evolved
and it grew bigger,

that soup really
cooled off.

Today, we can sample
the temperature

of that primordial radiation
across the universe.

We take measurements of
huge numbers

of tiny microwave patches,

pretty much the way we would do
a statistical analysis

of dragan's favorite pastime --
basketball.

I really love basketball,

and basketball court
is a really good place

to explain these cosmic
microwave background alignments.

Here on the basketball court,
we have, uh, jimmy king,

former university of michigan
basketball legend,

and his buddy willie vance.

They will show us alignments

and a cosmic microwave
background using their shooting.

Looking out
from the hoop onto the court

is a lot like looking up
from earth

to see the cosmic microwave
background.

Dragan can compare the made
and missed shots in the game

to the temperature fluctuations
he sees in the early universe.

Just like we have
hot and cold spots

in the cosmic microwave
background fluctuations,

we have makes and misses
in basketball.

So, we can represent each make
with the red

and miss with the blue.

Dragan maps the distribution

of makes and misses
across the half court.

The results show
an even distribution,

one that's symmetrical
on both sides of the half court.

If jimmy and willie hit a shot
from one spot,

they can probably hit
the same shot

on the other side of the court.

So the distribution
of the makes and the misses

is about the same
everywhere on the court --

the same number of makes
versus the misses.

This is what dragan
and other researchers

expected to find in the cosmic
microwave background --

an even distribution
of hot and cold temperatures

no matter where you look
in the sky.

But that's not at all what
dragan and his colleagues saw

when they looked more closely
at the pattern.

They found something
so startling, so disturbing,

cosmologists had no choice
but to call it the axis of evil.

These alignments in the sky

had been noted
around the same time that

george w. Bush had
his axis of evil,

so they were named by scientists
in england, the axis of evil.

We are not sure the axis is
actually evil.

What we found analyzing causing
microwave background data

was instead, that one direction
was special.

So, in basketball terms, it's
almost as if one direction,

relative to the basket,
were tilted.

If a corner of the court

that jimmy and willie are
playing on suddenly shifted...

...so that it now dropped off
at an angle,

it would make it harder to make
a shot from that area.

The even distribution of makes
and misses across the court

would suddenly be disrupted.

We see more blue dots
in the direction of the court.

And so you conclude
that something is off

about
the basketball court.

If a basketball court
were not flat,

you would know
something was seriously wrong.

Dragan feels the same way
about the universe.

In the cosmic microwave
background fluctuations,

we see that the structure

of the hot and cold spots
is different,

that they line up
in one direction in the sky

differently than they do
in all the other directions,

and that, maybe, tells us
that something is different

in that special direction
in the universe.

The largest hot and cold spots

are aligned along an axis that
cuts right across the cosmos.

The results suggest

that the shape of the universe
is somehow distorted.

But what could alter the shape
of the entire universe?

We are still not completely sure
what the cause is.

Is it just a fluke,

or is it that there is a reason
from the early universe?

It could be, also, that
this evil of axis alignments

are caused by structures
that we cannot see,

and yet they're there,

and they are creating
the alignments.

Just as a world of light
was shaped by dark matter,

the entire universe
may have been shaped

by an even darker entity.

Could the shadow universe
have a shadow,

something that controls the very
fabric of space and time?

We used to see
the black of night

as the epitome of nothingness,
but the darkness isn't empty.

It's full of strange material

that has shaped our universe
of atoms and light

into what it is today.

In turn, that cosmos
of dark matter

could be a mere spot
on the surface

of some far bigger plane
of reality.

The shadow universe could exist
beyond space and time --

a realm we can now only begin
to dream of understanding.

Through The Wormhole
S05E09