Search / 6 posts tagged Cosmic Microwave Background

Scientists from NASA have found that a large region of our universe is moving in a particular direction using observations of the cosmic microwave background and X-ray clusters. It seems that the local region of our universe, at least a couple of billion light years across, is moving towards a particular patch of the sky relative to the cosmic microwave background.

Sometimes people ask me what I do, and if I’m being completely honest, I’ll tell them I’m a cosmologist. When they ask for more details (because it isn’t hair, nails, and makeup), I tell them that I study the Universe, and try to figure out and understand the story of how we came to live in the world we live in here and now.

Some of you who’ve been following astronomy for awhile might remember this report, where a group of astronomers reported finding a giant “void” in the Universe. What is a void? Well, galaxies are distributed pretty randomly, but because of gravity, they cluster together.

When I think of molecules, I think of Conan O’Brien doing his skit where he plays Moleculo… the molecular man! I don’t think of astronomy, and I certainly don’t think of the leftover radiation from the big bang (known as the cosmic microwave background)! But somebody over at the European Southern Observatory put these two together and made an incredibly tasty science sandwich.

Not all experimental astrophysical studies require elaborate, incredibly expensive equipment deployed at the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrangian point, like WMAP. A lot can be done with a microwave antenna just 10 meters across... if it's located at the South Pole.

This was the third and final piece of the puzzle that led to the acceptance of the Big Bang and the rejection of all alternatives: the discovery of the background radiation left over from the Big Bang. The “leading theory” before this was discovered was the Steady-State theory. Sure, they knew of Hubble Expansion.