If you feel like you've been kicked around in life, maybe it's because you live in a big soccer ball.

Researchers in the U.S. and France say the universe may be curved in on itself, similar in shape to a soccer ball. They also suggest that the universe may not be infinite.

A team led by a scientists from Canton, N.Y., and including researchers from the Unviersity of Paris and the Observatory of Paris analysed data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), to come up with their conclusions.

The universe may be dodecahedral

The WMAP maps background radiation left over from the Big Bang.

That radiation is called Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, or CMB, and is considered the "echo" of the Big Bang.

The researchers measured temperature fluctuations in the CMB at the edges of the sky, and determined that those fluctuations are smaller than they would be in an infinite universe.

But a small, finite universe made of curved pentagons fitted together into a sphere would match the findings.

The dodecahedral shape means it may be possible to see all the way around the universe to the other side. If background radiation had travelled far enough to meet itself, it would create circular patterns, like intersecting ripples on a pond.

Scientists searching for those circular patterns have so far drawn a blank.

In a commentary in the journal Nature, where the findings are published, George Ellis of the University of Cape Town says "if confirmed, this is a major discovery about the nature of the universe."

A successor to WMAP, the Plank satellite, will be launched in 2007.