The notion of a Universe made of curved pentagon-shaped panels is derived from a satellite mapping of the radiation that was released by the Big Bang billions of years ago and which still washes through space in the form of microwave energy.

The study, led by New York researcher Jeff Weeks, is based on a reading of of temperature fluctuations at the extreme range of the microwave scale, recorded across the sky.

These fluctuations do not fit in with the "Standard Model" of a flat, always expanding Universe, they report in Thursday's issue of Nature, the weekly British science weekly.

"In an infinite flat space, waves from the Big Bang would fill the Universe on all length scales" in the microwave band, they argue.

They suggest that only a "dodecahedral" -- the posh word for a soccer-ball shape -- could contain this kind of energy release.

SPACE.WIRE