Are Wormholes Real?

Name: Caleb
Grade: 4
What is your favorite planet or star? Moon
Question: Are wormholes real?

God created the moon to not only provide us plenty of light during a clear night but also to stabilize the earth’s tilt.

Hi, Caleb, thanks for your question! Just so you know, the moon is not a planet or star. But it is very important for life on earth, so I like it too! God created the moon to not only provide us plenty of light during a clear night (Genesis 1:16) but also to stabilize the earth’s tilt, due to its rather large size and unusual orbit around the earth. Most other moons orbit right above the planet’s equator, but our moon follows an orbit similar to the earth’s orbit around the sun. And without this stability, the sun, plus the other planets in the solar system, would pull the earth from its tilt, which would result in extreme temperature swings (like boiling oceans and frozen wastelands) on different parts of the earth!

And in case you need a favorite rocket to choose from . . . you can borrow mine! My all-time favorite rocket is the Saturn V, a very tall and powerful rocket (no longer in use by NASA) that successfully launched the Apollo astronauts to the moon!

Saturn V; Photo from NASA.

Are wormholes real?

Now to your question, are wormholes real? There are quite a few ideas out there on what exactly a wormhole is (also known as an Einstein-Rosen bridge1). It’s commonly pictured to be like a shortcut “tunnel” that connects two faraway places through space (or more accurately through space-time2). It’s sort of like a big portal, where something could enter through one end and then quickly come out the other end in a completely different part of space, which could be some really far distance away (like billions or even trillions of miles away!) Think of a worm eating its way through an apple on one side and coming out the other side (hence the name wormhole!).

As with any subject, it’s important we always start all our thinking with the Bible—God’s Word. Does the Bible say anything about the existence of wormholes? Nope. But actually, the Bible doesn’t speak on a lot of things that we’ve discovered from science (like gravity or electricity). Simply put, the Bible is not a science textbook3 and so does not provide us that kind of answer. Rather, the Bible is the history book of the universe that answers fundamental questions (like where we came from, who we are, why we’re here, and so on). And most importantly, it tells us how we can become a child of God. So, for that reason, many things in the universe are not directly mentioned in the Bible (in the same way that a book on American history will tell you about the life of George Washington, but it won’t tell you how to calculate the area of a triangle).4

Now, you might be wondering, “Have we discovered any scientific evidence for wormholes?” Nope! (Or at least not yet.) Although scientists will say that wormholes are mathematically possible and that they could exist “in theory,”5 there’s currently no physical evidence that they do exist (or ever have existed in the past). And on top of that, scientists don’t even know how they could form in the first place!

Artist illustration of traveling through a wormhole; Les Bossinas (Cortez III Service Corp.), Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

For now, wormholes are just the stuff of science fiction.

But even if we were to discover in the future that wormholes do exist, they would simply be another fascinating part of God’s creation in the universe. And if we somehow figured out how to travel through these wormholes, they would definitely make for a useful way of exploring God’s enormous universe and discovering more of the heavens that display his glory (Psalm 19:1). Now that would be cool! But for now, wormholes are just the stuff of science fiction that make for some really entertaining stories and movies. (And they’re pretty fun to think about!)

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