Somewhere, out there across the Universe, something unusual is happening...
Recent observations seem to indicate that somewhere in the region of 1,000 galaxy clusters are travelling in the wrong direction, well, more in a direction that we wouldn't expect them to at least.
Most galaxies, as well as everything else in the Universe, are all travelling outwards from a central point, the Big Bang. As the Universe expands overtime, the galaxies accelerate outwards as spacetime expands between them (I think that's right), with a long view of all matter eventually losing all thermodynamic energy and reaching a point of total entropy. This is known as the Heat Death theory.
The problem is that we've now discovered a whole bunch of galaxies that seem to be travelling, whilst still away from the Big Bang, in slightly a different direction - kind of curving off to the left, if you like.
The reason for this, which is only the loosest of theories still, is that this is being called by a thing called Dark Flow. Basically, Dark Flow, whilst sounding pretty sexy, is just the name we've given to the fact we have no real idea why this is happening - it's happening because of Dark Flow, next job: what's Dark Flow.
The are main contender for the answer to this, from what I've read, is that there are unseen "megastructures" beyond the limits of our observable Universe (i.e. the bits of the Universe too far away from us for light to have reached us, even if it set off at the beginning of time, around 13.6 billion years ago). These megastructures are either:
a) really unlike anything else we've ever seen and really, really fucking big, or
b) other/another Universe(s), or
c) we have no idea
If option A is correct, this completely breaks what's known as Copernican theory, which states that there's nothing particularly special about our part of the Universe, that everything that goes on in our "local" area happens just the same everywhere else. Our part of the Universe doesn't contain supergiant megastructures (we're talking single things the size of thousands of galaxies) so therefore if they're loitering around just beyond the edge of what we can see, they're pretty fucking not "normal".
If it's option B, then this seems to indicate that our Universe is part of a collection of other Universes, much like stars/galaxies/galaxy clusters etc and that, if that's true, we're REALLY nowhere near understanding anything. Universes within universes... a bit like that bit at the end of Men in Black but without all the CGI.
Lastly, option C is that we don't know what's happening and we're not looking like we're about to work that out any time soon. Maybe it's gravity bending spacetime round some kind of super black hole? Maybe it's the Universe starting to contract back into the Big Crunch?
Whatever's happening out there and whether we're on the right track to solving it or not, whatever the outcome, it does seem to indicate that we're still only really scratching the surface.
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