It might sound like something you’d find in a Petri dish, but ekpyrotic cosmology is actually an alternative idea to the standard theory of cosmology, which is known as the Lambda-CDM, or ΛCDM model.

In the ΛCDM model, the remarkable flatness of the Universe requires a period of rapid ‘inflation’, which smooths out some of the early variations in density and temperature.

here’s no direct proof of this inflation, or a likely cause, but it does neatly explain many complicated aspects of the Universe we see today, and is perfectly consistent with current observations.

Read more: ‘Science’ contemplates the detail of it’s navel while the blatant stares it in the face – it’s a simulation: ‘This bold theory says the Big Bang wasn’t our beginning’