Post by Andrei Tchentchik on Jun 24, 2019 14:53:48 GMT 2
(.#211).- The echo of the Big Bang unveiled in its entirety.
The echo of the Big Bang unveiled in its entirety.
By Tristan Vey - Updated on the 09/07/2010 at 15:57
In the center, the Milky Way, our galaxy, very luminous. Up and down, in red and yellow, the fossil radiation in which we bathe since the Big Bang. Reuters.
The European Planck satellite provides a first complete picture of the sky in which the residual radiation of the Big Bang is perceptible. However, it will be necessary to wait until the end of 2012 so that the scientists manage to isolate it perfectly.
The Big Bang is there, all around us. We bathe in fact in a diffuse radiation called fossil radiation, inherited from the original explosion (this first light is emitted "only" 380,000 years after the Big Bang). But to observe this very cold microwave radiation (only 3 degrees above absolute zero) and whose existence was predicted at the end of the 1940s before being observed for the first time in 1964, is not easy. This signal is indeed drowned in the electromagnetic environment and it takes all the skill of scientists to succeed in isolating what George Smoot, Nobel Prize in Physics 2006, called "the face of God".
Today, the European satellite Planck launched in 2009 and located 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth (a place of equilibrium between the gravitational field of the Earth and the Sun called Lagrange point) delivers a first global image of the sky in which we can observe both the radiation of our Galaxy and this luminous echo of the Big Bang. "The structure of the fossil radiation [in red and yellow on the image] is more evident in the regions at the top and bottom of the image, where the emission of our galaxy is weaker," explains Jean-Michel Lamarre, scientific leader of one of the two main on-board measuring instruments of the satellite.
No interpretations before months
In order to observe only the cosmological radiation of the Big Bang, a great deal of analysis will still be necessary. "The different phases of the interstellar medium emit in different frequency bands," colors "," explains Jean-Loup Puget, research director at the CNRS at the Institute of Space Astrophysics. These "colors" can be used to separate the light from our galaxy, in the center of the image, to extract the only fossil radiation. "Exactly the same way that the human brain is able to isolate the voice of a person who speaks in the middle of a group in full discussion," adds Jean-Loup Puget. It will thus be necessary to wait until the end of 2012 for this new incredibly precise and detailed image of the "face of God" to be made public. It should provide a great deal of information on the birth and the first moments of our universe, and allow us to better understand the pace of its expansion.
Meanwhile, this first batch of data brings information about our galaxy, the Milky Way. However, this will require the interpretation of astrophysicists who can take months, even years. A work of ant whose stake is always the same: to better understand how our universe works.
F I N .
The echo of the Big Bang unveiled in its entirety.
By Tristan Vey - Updated on the 09/07/2010 at 15:57
In the center, the Milky Way, our galaxy, very luminous. Up and down, in red and yellow, the fossil radiation in which we bathe since the Big Bang. Reuters.
The European Planck satellite provides a first complete picture of the sky in which the residual radiation of the Big Bang is perceptible. However, it will be necessary to wait until the end of 2012 so that the scientists manage to isolate it perfectly.
The Big Bang is there, all around us. We bathe in fact in a diffuse radiation called fossil radiation, inherited from the original explosion (this first light is emitted "only" 380,000 years after the Big Bang). But to observe this very cold microwave radiation (only 3 degrees above absolute zero) and whose existence was predicted at the end of the 1940s before being observed for the first time in 1964, is not easy. This signal is indeed drowned in the electromagnetic environment and it takes all the skill of scientists to succeed in isolating what George Smoot, Nobel Prize in Physics 2006, called "the face of God".
Today, the European satellite Planck launched in 2009 and located 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth (a place of equilibrium between the gravitational field of the Earth and the Sun called Lagrange point) delivers a first global image of the sky in which we can observe both the radiation of our Galaxy and this luminous echo of the Big Bang. "The structure of the fossil radiation [in red and yellow on the image] is more evident in the regions at the top and bottom of the image, where the emission of our galaxy is weaker," explains Jean-Michel Lamarre, scientific leader of one of the two main on-board measuring instruments of the satellite.
No interpretations before months
In order to observe only the cosmological radiation of the Big Bang, a great deal of analysis will still be necessary. "The different phases of the interstellar medium emit in different frequency bands," colors "," explains Jean-Loup Puget, research director at the CNRS at the Institute of Space Astrophysics. These "colors" can be used to separate the light from our galaxy, in the center of the image, to extract the only fossil radiation. "Exactly the same way that the human brain is able to isolate the voice of a person who speaks in the middle of a group in full discussion," adds Jean-Loup Puget. It will thus be necessary to wait until the end of 2012 for this new incredibly precise and detailed image of the "face of God" to be made public. It should provide a great deal of information on the birth and the first moments of our universe, and allow us to better understand the pace of its expansion.
Meanwhile, this first batch of data brings information about our galaxy, the Milky Way. However, this will require the interpretation of astrophysicists who can take months, even years. A work of ant whose stake is always the same: to better understand how our universe works.
F I N .
