Our understanding of the universe could be fundamentally wrong, scientists have said.

Newly released data from the Planck Telescope, which aimed to take very precise readings of the shape, size and ancient history of our universe, suggests that there could be something wrong in our physics, according to a new paper.

The issue could be an indication of a "crisis in cosmology" that may be as yet unrealised because of problems with our understanding of the shape of the universe, the authors of a new paper write.

At the moment, scientists generally believe that the universe is "flat". That is in keeping with large amounts of data gathered from telescopes peering deep into space, including readings from the European Space Agency's Planck Telescope.

But in a newly published paper, researchers note that the latest release of data from the same Planck telescope gave different readings than expected under our standard understanding of the universe. Those could be explained by the fact the universe is "closed", the authors write – which would help explain issues with the readings.

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