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They may not be as stylish as a DeLorean or as sturdy as a blue police box, but wormholes in space could hold the key to real-life time travel – and a team of experts think they’ve figured out how. The trio of scientists delved deep into the laws of physics and discovered that it might be possible for humans to one day zip across galaxies in a matter of seconds, or journey through time itself. Now, this is all to do with the general theory of relativity and quantum physics, so don’t expect to get your head around it too easily. However, in their paper, Valeri P. Frolov and Andrei Zelnikov of Canada’s University of Alberta, and Pavel Krtouš of Prague’s Charles University proposed that a specific kind of wormhole would “inevitably” be “transformed into a time machine” if it was subject to particular conditions. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter For the uninitiated, wormholes can be described as spacetimes in which a “kind of tunnel exists connecting distant parts in the universe”. The main problem with them is… they don’t actually exist. At least not in any tangible way. As Drs Eric Christian and Louis Barbier put it in an explainer for NASA: “Wormholes are allowed to exist in the math of ‘General Relativity’, which is our best description of the Universe. “Assuming that general relativity is correct, there may be wormholes. But no one has any idea how they would be created, and there is no evidence for anything like a wormhole in the observed Universe.” Still, numerous experts in the field of gravitation and general relativity have spent years or even decades working on them, including Stephen Hawking in his time. For their paper, Frolov, Krtouš, and Zelnikov explored what is known as a ring wormhole, which was first described in 2016 by theoretical physicist Gary Gibbons, of Cambridge University, and Mikhail Volkov of the University of Tours. Unlike the spherical contortions of spacetime we might attribute to black holes, the ring wormhole proposed by Gibbons and Volkov connects sections of the universe (or, indeed, different universes) which are generally described as “flat”, as ScienceAlert notes. Ring-shaped masses could potentially create some pretty remarkable distortions in what would otherwise be flat spacetime if you consider how their electrical and magnetic fields might interact. And so Frolov, Krtouš, and Zelnikov decided to consider two types of such wormholes: “a wormhole connecting to flat spaces; and a wormhole connecting two distant domains in the same space”. For the latter, they concluded that if a “massive thin shell” surrounded one of the mouths of the ring wormhole, a “closed timelike curve” would form. This, as the name suggests, would mean that any travelling object (or ray of light) would come back to the exact same point whence it began. In other words, you could travel in space and time and return to your point of departure. The most exciting aspect of ring wormholes, as the authors point out is that: “For the ring wormhole an observer passing through it moves in a flat (or practically flat spacetime), while in the case of ‘standard’ (spherical) wormholes he/she should pass a domain filled with the matter violating the null energy condition.” Even without knowing what the “null energy condition” is, you can appreciate that the first option sounds a lot simpler. Now, before you start calling yourself Marty McFly or making a list of all the past mistakes you’d like to correct, we should stress that we’re a long way off seeing the creation of a bonafide, buckle-your-seatbelt time machine. But at least, thanks to the efforts of experts like Frolov, Krtouš, and Zelnikov, we’re at least one step closer to going back in the future. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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CAMPBELL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 8, 2023--

SpaceX is ready to launch its next-generation Starship rocket, according to Elon Musk, pending regulatory approval. Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built, measuring 121 metres in height and capable of producing 5,000 metric tons of thrust. Once testing is complete, the craft will form part of Nasa’s Artemis mission to return astronauts to the Moon. Mr Musk also plans to use the rocket to transport people and cargo around the solar system, eventually using fleets of Starships to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. The next launch will be the second attempt at an orbital flight test, with the only previous effort ending in an explosion just three minutes into the 90 minute flight earlier this year. Each launch attempt requires approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), while also requiring favourable weather conditions. “Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA licence approval,” Mr Musk posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the FAA previously told The Independent that the launch licence application for Starship depends on various requirements being met, including reviews on policy, payload, safety, airspace integration, financial responsibility and environmental impacts. “The FAA will make a licence determination only after the agency is satisfied SpaceX meets all licensing, safety and other regulatory requirements,” the spokesperson said. SpaceX typically only reveals the date for rocket tests a few days before they take place, though numerous factors can still delay them. Weather at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas is currently favourable for a launch, though the area can be prone to storms and hurricanes between June and November. SpaceX performed its 62nd orbital rocket launch of 2023 earlier this week, breaking its own record for the most number of launches in a single year. The private company has delivered roughly 80 per cent of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023, with Mr Musk predicting that this figure will rise to more than 99 per cent once Starship is in operation. “These magnitudes are madness to consider, but necessary to make consciousness multiplanetary,” he posted on X on Sunday. Read More SpaceX smashes rocket launch record as Musk eyes historic Starship mission SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter