Could ripples in spacetime point to wormholes?

Gravitational wave detectors have already spotted mysterious black holes. But what they turn up next might be even stranger: wormholes.

Physicists have long suspected wormholes might exist. If wormholes exist, from the outside they might appear similar to black holes. But an object that falls into a black hole would become trapped inside it. In contrast, anything that falls into a wormhole should be able to pass right through to the other side.

The force we experience as gravity actually results from the curving of spacetime.

It can be hard to picture, so consider this: Planets orbit around the sun because the sun makes a bowl shape in the fabric of space. (The planets are a bit like marbles circling around and around inside that bowl.) Black holes curve spacetime into chasms so deep that nothing can escape. But spacetime could also curve into other weird shapes, such as tunnels.

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A wormhole, illustrated here, is a tunnel through spacetime that connects different parts of the universe. Scientists report that a black hole circling a wormhole would emit a special pattern of gravitational waves — one unique to wormholes.

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After decades trying to directly detect gravitational waves, the recently upgraded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, now known as Advanced LIGO, has succeeded. This has ushered in a new era of astronomy.

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