Rotating Wormhole Without Exotic Matter ⚡ экспресс
Imagine space as a sheet of paper. A wormhole is a tunnel between two distant points, but normally exotic matter is needed to keep it stable. In this work, they showed that in a modified theory of gravity, a rotating wormhole can exist with ordinary matter, without any weirdness. Could such cosmic tunnels really be out there, waiting to be discovered?
A wormhole is a tunnel in curved spacetime that shortens the path between distant regions. In Einstein's theory, such a tunnel collapses instantly: to keep it open, you need a 'strut' of negative-energy matter (antigravity). No such matter has been found, so wormholes were considered fantasy.
In a new study, scientists revised the laws of gravity: in their model, rotation itself pries the walls apart. Think of a whirlpool in a river — the swirling flow creates a funnel that stays open as long as it spins. Calculations show that nothing exotic is needed — ordinary matter does the job. The rotation also drags spacetime along, making light loop around the tunnel.
Most surprising: such a wormhole could act as a time machine. Spacetime around it twists so much that a traveler emerges from the other end before they even entered. For an Earth observer, the object would cast a double shadow with a bright ring, unlike black holes or neutron stars. Future telescopes could spot such a signature.
🎯 The name was coined by physicist [scientist:John Archibald Wheeler]John Wheeler[/scientist]: he compared spacetime to an apple, with a worm chewing a shortcut through its interior instead of crawling along the skin.
🎬 Like in 'Interstellar': a wormhole near Saturn sent heroes to other worlds. Now physicists say such a thing might work without mysterious antigravity — just rotation.