Wormhole is a “shortcut” that may exist in space. A spaceship might use a wormhole to reduce the duration of a trip from Earth to a star. Suppose the star were 1,000 light-years away, as measured in ordinary space. One light-year is the distance that light travels in one year in a vacuum, about 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers). If the ship flew at nearly the speed of light—the fastest anything can move—the trip would take over 1,000 years. But suppose Earth and the star were also 1 light-year from a wormhole. By going through the wormhole, the ship could reach the star in about two years.
The known laws of physics do not indicate that wormholes exist, and astronomers have seen no evidence of them. Some scientists have suggested that wormholes develop as a result of forces that have not yet been discovered. But others argue that their existence would violate fundamental principles of physics.
Ideas about wormholes are based on the theory of general relativity developed by the German-born physicist Albert Einstein. According to the theory, matter curves space. To picture a wormhole, imagine a two-dimensional universe, as represented by a sheet of paper. Over vast distances, matter would cause space to curve back on itself in the shape of the letter U. Imagine that a short strip of space connected the two “uprights” of the U. The connection would be a wormhole.
