Did NASA Discover a Parallel Universe?

A flurry of stories recently hit my timeline claiming that NASA had discovered a parallel universe where time runs backward. I was immediately suspicious because none of those stories actually came from NASA. And as the famous astronomer Carl Sagan once said, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” So what is the evidence?

What is a parallel universe?

First, let’s look at what we mean by a parallel universe. The term can take different meanings in science fiction stories versus scientific theory.

Theory tells us that in an infinitely big universe, there are only so many ways all the stuff inside it can be arranged before those patterns have to start repeating themselves. To put this in more relatable terms, a common analogy is to take a deck of cards and lay out all of the cards in the order you find them. Now shuffle that deck and lay the cards out again. Repeat this exercise enough times and you're destined to repeat the same order eventually. 

A parallel universe would be a universe much like our own, with the same laws of physics and makeup, but with a different history or evolutionary path.

So a parallel universe would be a universe much like our own, with the same laws of physics and makeup, but with a different history or evolutionary path. The multiverse, this universe of universes, can also take other forms besides a series of parallel universes. Other realities could be folded away in different dimensions or even exist as disconnected bubble universes where the laws of physics are completely different. 

These ideas tend to be highly abstract. Their existence comes out of patterns in the mathematical framework that describes our physical universe. Or they are invoked as physicists try to explain why two of our biggest physical theories, quantum mechanics and general relativity, don’t play well together.

But could we actually find a parallel universe? 

Can we find a parallel universe?

The story of a parallel universe where time runs backward starts with an experiment in the Antarctic called ANITA, or the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna. ANITA is a set of radio antennas onboard a helium balloon flying approximately 37,000 meters above Antarctica, or about four times as high as a commercial jet flies. These radio dishes are looking for evidence of neutrinos—tiny subatomic...

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