Stellar Wormholes May Exist 94
seagirlreed writes "Pairs of stars could be connected via wormholes filled with 'phantom matter,' according to Kyrgyz researchers. If a wormhole exists within a star, the stellar body may exhibit measurable properties astronomers might detect. Although interesting, other scientists are skeptical, pointing out that this is highly speculative research."
Alternative to cosmic inflation? (Score:4, Interesting)
TFA says "Also, if the wormhole is short, so that the two stars it links don't lie far apart, an observer might see another unusual signpost -- two closely spaced objects with nearly identical properties."
However, the wormhole doesn't need to be short, which would mean regions of the universe far apart from each other would have similar properties if wormholes existed.
This would solve one of the big problems in modern cosmology, the horizon problem [wikipedia.org]: how can regions of the universe that couldn't possibly have communicated with each other in the lifetime of the universe have similar properties?
Strange Matter (Score:5, Interesting)
The original paper [arxiv.org] makes it clear that this, like every other wormhole solution in General Relativity, requires "strange matter" - in their case, "as exotic matter, a massless ghost scalar field has been chosen". The interesting thing is that it links two stars together in a way that may have observable consequences (material would flow from one star to the other to keep the pressure in the cores equal, which would change how the star would evolve from one in isolation).
Note that these wormholes require the "exotic matter" to exist, so it's a mistake to say that this proves they can exist or whatever, as there is no actual evidence for any of the strange or exotic matter possibilities required to support them.
Now, suppose that such exotic matter does exist. Could this be used for transportation by an advanced civilization ? Maybe. You would have to find a wormhole end point in orbit about a black hole, and wait (or engineer) for the star to expand and for the black hole to "eat" the star's gas. If that process could go to completion, voila !, a naked wormhole would be left, and, if that were stable, you could use it for transportation.
Figuring out the necessary black hole engineering to do this is left as an exercise for the reader.