Antartic Telescope Sees Big Bang Echo

Thor · Sep 30, 2002

I should really leave CNN.com alone, but hey. Thought this might interest some of you

CHICAGO (Reuters) -- Astronomers using a radio telescope at the South Pole reported they had recorded a flicker of light from nearly 14 billion years ago that verifies most modern theories about the cosmos.

Had the verification not been made, it would have tossed much current thinking into doubt, according to John Carlstrom of the University of Chicago.

"Instead of stating that we think we really understand the origin and evolution of the universe with high confidence, we would be saying that we just don't know," absent the discovery, he said in an announcement from the university.

The development was reported Thursday at a conference at Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

The discovery was made with a telescope called the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott station in the Antarctic.

It involved a measurement of a minute polarization of cosmic microwave background. The announcement described that background as the "sky-pervading afterglow of the big bang" to which experts trace the origin of the universe.

The polarization, or scattering, in that afterglow that the astronomers found was produced when cosmic light last interacted with matter nearly 14 billion years ago, the report said.

The polarization, Carlstrom said, is a signpost from when the universe was only 400,000 years old, when matter and light were only just beginning to separate from one another. What is unique about the polarization, he said, "is that it directly measures the dynamics in the early universe."

Most light is not polarized but flickers, wave by wave, up and down in different planes as it speeds toward Earth. It becomes polarized when it is reflected or scattered -- in the same way that polarized sunglasses permit only waves of light in the same plane to reach the eye, eliminating glare.

"This beautiful framework of contemporary cosmology has many things in it we don't understand, but we believe in the framework," said Clem Pryke, assistant professor of astronomy at the school. "This new result (finding polarization) was a crucial test for the framework to pass."

Detecting the polarization signal required monitoring two spots in the sky for more than 200 days. The Chicago astronomers said future work will produce increasingly sensitive detection of polarization, which could triple the amount of information currently derived from cosmic microwave background
Click to expand...

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Map of primordial microwave radiation from NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

wet1 · Sep 30, 2002

Thanx for the article Thor!

That is very interesting. I see I will have to do some research...

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Log in or Sign up

Antartic Telescope Sees Big Bang Echo

Thor "Pfft, Rebel scum!" Valued Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Antartic Telescope Sees Big Bang Echo

Thor "Pfft, Rebel scum!" Valued Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

Share This Page

Useful Searches