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The most detailed glimpse ever gained of the early universe shows ripples in space back before there were any stars. This finding adds support to theories of how the universe began in an initial Big Bang, inflated rapidly, then developed the first galaxies.
The new view, imaged in microwave wavelengths not visible to the eye, shows the earliest fluctuations in density -- essentially lumps and bumps -- of what was otherwise a smooth distribution of matter roughly 300,000 years after the birth of the universe. The pictures are of a so-called cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which is ubiquitous throughout the universe.
"For the first time, we're seeing the seeds of galaxy clusters," said Caltech professor Anthony Readhead, who led the observations. "These are the formations that gave rise to all structures in the universe."
About the CMB
The CMB was predicted in the 1940s and first detected in 1965. For decades after its discovery, it appeared to be a uniform temperature in every direction of space.
But in the early 1990s, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite made the first detection of variations that cosmologists now believe were the seeds of structure.
Computer models see these variations as leading long filaments of matter connected at nodes, much like a spider web. Clumps of hydrogen -- something like drops on the spider web -- developed along the filaments. Each drop had mass, gravity and some random velocity, and eventually they were drawn to the nodes.
Matter got together and galaxies were born, most of them in large clusters.
In recent years, cosmologists have also come to understand that this whole process was aided by a significant amount of unseen material and energy, so-called dark matter and dark energy. The new results provide further support for the existence of these exotic phenomena, even though they have yet to be detected or fully described.
"These unique high-resolution observations give a powerful confirmation of the standard cosmological model," Readhead said. He discussed the findings today at a press conference at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.
About the observations
The data was collected by the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI), which sits atop a 16,700-foot (5,090-meter) mountain in Chile, where dry, thin air allows for fine observations. The CBI actually detects temperature differences of far less than 1 degree. Hotter regions, seen as white in the new images, correspond to denser areas.
The cosmic microwave background was generated when matter became cool enough for electrons and protons to combine and form the first atoms, theorists say.
At this same time, the universe became transparent. Prior to the CMB, the small, hot and rapidly growing universe was shrouded in a thick fog -- light could not travel far because it would hit an electron.
Researchers said the observations are more detailed than previous studies of the CMB. Because they were obtained via different methods and at different frequencies and yet agreed with previous observations, the scientists said they have great confidence in the combined results.
Alan Guth, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the originators of the idea of inflation 20 years ago, said the new observations "agree well with theory" and the confirmation is "very important."
Inflation is not quite a theory; rather it is a set of ideas added on to the Big Bang theory. Despite its name, the Big Bang does not actually describe the universe's inception. Inflation does, suggesting that the first fraction of a second involved a tremendous expansion. It says that the universe was generated mostly from dark matter and dark energy, and that only a tiny bit of real matter was required to get things going.
Theorists now believe that about 35 percent of energy density of the universe is in the form of dark matter. About 60 percent is in dark energy, leaving just 5 percent that has been converted to stuff that makes plants, people, stars and other things that can be seen.
All the exotic material must be there, researcher say, because of the effects of gravity they see in galaxies that can't be explained by the amount of real matter they find.
House of cards
Guth admitted that the whole theory "seems like a house of cards," but experiments like CBI are confirming that it is accurate, he said. He added that when he was originally scratching out formulas 20 years ago that predicted what CBI has now seen, he never imagined that such detailed observations would actually be made.
The CBI is supported by the National Science Foundation, Caltech, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. It is an array of 13 antennas each about 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter. The radiation detected by each antenna is combined to effectively create one more acute observation.
Researchers from the following institutions also participated in the work: National Radio Astronomy Observatory; University of Chicago; Universidad de Chile; University of Alberta; University of California at Berkeley; and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Readhead and his colleagues will submit five papers on their results to the Astrophysical Journal.
A separate announcement today, from the British Royal Astronomical Society, said similar results had been achieved using the Very Small Array of antennas, in Tenerife, Spain. Those results also support cosmological theories, said researchers at Universities of Cambridge and Manchester and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in Tenerife.
The new view, imaged in microwave wavelengths not visible to the eye, shows the earliest fluctuations in density -- essentially lumps and bumps -- of what was otherwise a smooth distribution of matter roughly 300,000 years after the birth of the universe. The pictures are of a so-called cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which is ubiquitous throughout the universe.
"For the first time, we're seeing the seeds of galaxy clusters," said Caltech professor Anthony Readhead, who led the observations. "These are the formations that gave rise to all structures in the universe."
About the CMB
The CMB was predicted in the 1940s and first detected in 1965. For decades after its discovery, it appeared to be a uniform temperature in every direction of space.
But in the early 1990s, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite made the first detection of variations that cosmologists now believe were the seeds of structure.
Computer models see these variations as leading long filaments of matter connected at nodes, much like a spider web. Clumps of hydrogen -- something like drops on the spider web -- developed along the filaments. Each drop had mass, gravity and some random velocity, and eventually they were drawn to the nodes.
Matter got together and galaxies were born, most of them in large clusters.
In recent years, cosmologists have also come to understand that this whole process was aided by a significant amount of unseen material and energy, so-called dark matter and dark energy. The new results provide further support for the existence of these exotic phenomena, even though they have yet to be detected or fully described.
"These unique high-resolution observations give a powerful confirmation of the standard cosmological model," Readhead said. He discussed the findings today at a press conference at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.
About the observations
The data was collected by the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI), which sits atop a 16,700-foot (5,090-meter) mountain in Chile, where dry, thin air allows for fine observations. The CBI actually detects temperature differences of far less than 1 degree. Hotter regions, seen as white in the new images, correspond to denser areas.
The cosmic microwave background was generated when matter became cool enough for electrons and protons to combine and form the first atoms, theorists say.
At this same time, the universe became transparent. Prior to the CMB, the small, hot and rapidly growing universe was shrouded in a thick fog -- light could not travel far because it would hit an electron.
Researchers said the observations are more detailed than previous studies of the CMB. Because they were obtained via different methods and at different frequencies and yet agreed with previous observations, the scientists said they have great confidence in the combined results.
Alan Guth, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the originators of the idea of inflation 20 years ago, said the new observations "agree well with theory" and the confirmation is "very important."
Inflation is not quite a theory; rather it is a set of ideas added on to the Big Bang theory. Despite its name, the Big Bang does not actually describe the universe's inception. Inflation does, suggesting that the first fraction of a second involved a tremendous expansion. It says that the universe was generated mostly from dark matter and dark energy, and that only a tiny bit of real matter was required to get things going.
Theorists now believe that about 35 percent of energy density of the universe is in the form of dark matter. About 60 percent is in dark energy, leaving just 5 percent that has been converted to stuff that makes plants, people, stars and other things that can be seen.
All the exotic material must be there, researcher say, because of the effects of gravity they see in galaxies that can't be explained by the amount of real matter they find.
House of cards
Guth admitted that the whole theory "seems like a house of cards," but experiments like CBI are confirming that it is accurate, he said. He added that when he was originally scratching out formulas 20 years ago that predicted what CBI has now seen, he never imagined that such detailed observations would actually be made.
The CBI is supported by the National Science Foundation, Caltech, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. It is an array of 13 antennas each about 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter. The radiation detected by each antenna is combined to effectively create one more acute observation.
Researchers from the following institutions also participated in the work: National Radio Astronomy Observatory; University of Chicago; Universidad de Chile; University of Alberta; University of California at Berkeley; and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Readhead and his colleagues will submit five papers on their results to the Astrophysical Journal.
A separate announcement today, from the British Royal Astronomical Society, said similar results had been achieved using the Very Small Array of antennas, in Tenerife, Spain. Those results also support cosmological theories, said researchers at Universities of Cambridge and Manchester and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in Tenerife.
