“Perplexing observations beamed back by a NASA spacecraft are fuelling debates about a mystery of biblical proportions – is our Universe infinite? Scientists have announced tantalising hints that the Universe is actually relatively small, with a hall-of-mirrors illusion tricking us into thinking that space stretches on forever.

However, work by a second team seems to contradict this, and scientists are now busy trying to resolve the conundrum.” —New Scientist The new work is based on analysis of the size of fluctuations or ‘ripples’ in the cosmic microwave background radiation that is an artifact of the conditions of the universe soon after it came into existence. A finite universe would place constraints on the size of the ripples, as scientists think they are now seeing. But if the illusion that space is infinite is a ‘hall of mirrors’ effect, other scientists, remonstrate, there would be some symmetry in the background radiation pattern observed in different directions, which is not seen. ‘Round and ’round we go…