![]() ![]() They were only a few billion years after the Big Bang. Observe Andromeda, the nearest big galaxy, as it was about 2.5 million years ago.Īstronomers observing distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope can see them as Thus, we see them as they were 10 to 100 years ago. Most of the stars that are visible to the naked eye in the night Since light travels at a finite speed, astronomers observing distant objects are Why study the Cosmic Microwave Background? Tried to devise alternative explanations for the source of this radiation, but none have ![]() Imagine a local source of radiation that was this uniform. Interpret the radiation as remnant heat from the Big Bang it would be very difficult to Uniform to better than one part in a thousand! This uniformity is one compelling reason to Left shows a false color depiction of the temperature (brightness) of the CMB over theįull sky (projected onto an oval, similar to a map of the Earth). Glow with a brightness that was astonishingly uniform in every direction. In fact, if we could see microwaves, the entire sky would However, it fills the universe and can beĭetected everywhere we look. Spectrum, and is invisible to the naked eye. ![]() In the microwave portion of the electromagnetic Today, the CMB radiation is very cold, only 2.725° aboveĪbsolute zero, thus this radiation shines primarily Penzias and Wilson shared the 1978 Nobel prize in physics Wilson detailing the observations, and one by Dicke, Peebles, Roll, and Wilkinson giving The result was a pair of papers in the Astrophysical Journal (vol. When they heard about the Bell Labs result they immediately realized that the CMB Coincidentally, researchers at nearby Princeton University, led by Robert DickeĪnd including Dave Wilkinson of the WMAP science team, were devising an experiment to find The radiation was acting as a source of excess noise in a radio receiver they wereīuilding. It was first observed inadvertently in 1965 byĪrno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New The existence of the CMB radiation was first predicted by Ralph Alpherin 1948 in connection with his research on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis undertaken together with Robert Herman and George Gamow. Discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Thus the universe shouldīe filled with radiation that is literally the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang,Ĭalled the cosmic microwave background", or CMB. Very hot place and that as it expands, the gas within it cools. The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a ![]()
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