<\/figure>\nHOW long is a piece of string? In this case, as long as the entire universe is wide. But then cosmic strings aren\u2019t your average twine. Thinner than a proton and stretching for billions of light years, they would propagate through space at nigh-on the speed of light, fuelled by \u2013 and containing \u2013 the barely imaginable energies that existed at the big bang, where they originated.<\/p>\n
Or at least that\u2019s the idea. Cosmic strings are among the most extreme phenomena theorists have ever dreamed up, and yet there are sound reasons to consider them. They are \u201cone of the most plausible, testable predictions of unified theories\u201d, says Neil Turok, a physicist at the University of Edinburgh, UK \u2013 referring to theories that seek to describe how the fundamental forces of nature were merged, and then diverged, in the very early universe.<\/p>\n
We are yet to find any clear evidence for the existence of cosmic strings. But in the past year, astronomers have spotted a slew of anomalies \u2013 from inexplicably large galaxies to strangely shaped clusters \u2013 that suggest we may finally be within touching distance of these enigmatic threads. What\u2019s more, if one of these hints does hold up, we now have the tools to confirm the existence of cosmic strings once and for all, and even to begin distinguishing between their different forms.<\/p>\n
That would count as an \u201cenormous\u201d breakthrough, says Joseph Conlon at the University of Oxford, as it could help theorists decide between the various unified theories on the table. \u201cIt would be a fundamentally new\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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