cosmic microwave background Concepts

Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

by Neil Degrasse Tyson and Avis Lang · 27 Feb 2012 · 476pp · 118,381 words

Telephone Laboratories by the physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. The signal from this heat is an omnipresent, omnidirectional ocean of light—often called the cosmic microwave background—that today registers about 2.7 degrees on the “absolute” temperature scale and is dominated by microwaves (though it radiates at all wavelengths). This discovery

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of discovery does not require that you understand, either in advance or after the fact, what you’ve discovered. That’s what happened with the cosmic microwave background. It also happened with gamma-ray bursts. Mysterious, seemingly random explosions of high-energy gamma rays scattered across the sky were first detected in the

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when gravitational events in the universe—collisions, explosions, collapsed stars—are routinely observed. In principle, we might one day see beyond the opaque wall of cosmic microwave background radiation to the Big Bang itself. Like Magellan’s crew, who first circumnavigated Earth and saw the limits of the globe, we would then have

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was launched in 2001, reached the Sun–Earth L2 in a couple of months and is still librating there, having busily taken data on the cosmic microwave background—the omnipresent signature of the Big Bang. And having set aside a mere 10 percent of its total fuel, the WMAP satellite nevertheless has enough

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–11 Cook, James, 160 Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRDAs), 303–8 Copernican principle, 34, 36 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 34, 97, 115, 118 Corey, Cyrus, 212 cosmic microwave background, 92, 94–95, 176 cosmic perspective, 258, 259–61 cosmochemistry, 30 Cosmos (TV show), 256 Cosmos 1 spacecraft, 166, 170 Cosmos 954 satellite, 168 Cronkite

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US rivalry with, 5–6, 59, 79, 87, 121–27, 133, 192, 219 see also Sputnik space, space exploration: colonization of, 57, 60, 102–3 cosmic microwave background in, 92, 94–95 cross-discipline endeavor in, 24–25, 230 culture and, 72–74, 147–48, 210–11 early attitudes toward, 217–18 economic

The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility

by Robert Zubrin · 30 Apr 2019 · 452pp · 126,310 words

windows blurred or completely blocked by the Earth's atmosphere. These include the WideField InfraRed Space Telescope (WFIRST),3 the Gravitational Wave Surveyor,4 the Cosmic Microwave Background Surveyor,5 the Far InfraRed Surveyor,6 the Lynx X-Ray Surveyor,7 the Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission,8 the Origins Space Telescope,9 and

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theory applied to the universe, 262–63 computers, early, 233–34 constants, role of in physics, 260–61 Coons, Steve, 148 Coppi, Bruno, 176–77 Cosmic Microwave Background Surveyor, 251 cosmic rays, 104, 132, 135, 167, 192, 253, 259, 339 cost-plus contracting, 22–24, 330–31 COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services), 330

The Fabric of the Cosmos

by Brian Greene · 1 Jan 2003 · 695pp · 219,110 words

universe is suffused with microwave radiation—long-wavelength light—that is a cool relic of the sweltering conditions just after the big bang.4 This cosmic microwave background radiation is perfectly harmless. Early on, it was stupendously hot, but as the universe evolved and expanded, the radiation steadily diluted and cooled. Today it

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the foreseeable future, this is the most likely scenario for a direct confirmation of string theory. Cosmic Origins As we saw in earlier chapters, the cosmic microwave background radiation has played a dominant role in cosmological research since its discovery in the mid-1960s. The reason is clear: in the early stages of

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for launch in 2007, and if all goes according to plan, will better WMAP’s resolution by a factor of ten. Figure 14.4 (a) Cosmic microwave background radiation data gathered by the COBE satellite. The radiation has been traveling through space unimpeded since about 300,000 years after the big bang, so

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inflation’s predicted gravitational waves, but it is possible that they will be observed indirectly either by Planck or by another satellite experiment called the Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization experiment (CMBPol) that is now being planned. Planck, and CMBPol in particular, will not focus solely on temperature variations of the microwave background radiation

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. Copenhagen interpretation: Interpretation of quantum mechanics that envisions large objects as being subject to classical laws and small objects as being subject to quantum laws. cosmic microwave background radiation: Remnant electromagnetic radiation (photons) from the early universe, which permeates space. cosmic horizon, horizon: Locations in space beyond which light has not had time

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probability wave are realized in separate universes. messenger particle: Smallest “packet” or “bundle” of a force, which communicates the forces’ influence. microwave background radiation: See cosmic microwave background radiation. negative curvature: Shape of space containing less than the critical density; saddle-shaped. observable universe: Part of universe within our cosmic horizon; part of

The Grand Design

by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow · 14 Jun 2010 · 124pp · 40,697 words

first direct observations supporting the idea didn’t come until 1965, with the discovery that there is a faint background of microwaves throughout space. This cosmic microwave background radiation, or CMBR, is the same as that in your microwave oven, but much less powerful. You can observe the CMBR yourself by tuning your

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only a few millimeters across. Today the universe is vastly larger and cooler, but we can observe the remnants of that early period in the cosmic microwave background radiation that permeates all space. Black hole • a region of space-time that, due to its immense gravitational force, is cut off from the rest

Wonders of the Universe

by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen · 12 Jul 2011

light both day and night. However, some of this hidden light is not quite a featureless glow; the long wavelength universal glow known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in fact displays minute variations in its wavelength. The CMB carries with it an image of our universe as it was just after its

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is now visible to us only in the microwave and radio parts of the spectrum. This faint, long, wavelength universal glow is known as the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB, and its discovery in 1964 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson was key evidence in proving that the Universe began in a Big

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see in the most redshifted Hubble Space Telescope data – the formation of the first galaxies – and their seeds are the minute fluctuations visible in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. This detailed picture of the Universe in its infancy was pieced together from data collected over several years by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

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reigns supreme, and tiny quantum fluctuations before inflation would have been magnified by the rapid expansion to form the denser regions we observe in the Cosmic Microwave Background spectrum. If inflationary theory is correct, the CMB is therefore a window onto a time in the life of the Universe far earlier than 400

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the first protons and neutrons which were later to form the nuclei of the first atoms – mostly hydrogen and helium. After the emission of the cosmic microwave background, around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the pace of events became more sedate. According to current understanding, the Universe will continue to expand

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Chankillo, Peru 201–3, 201, 202, 203 Chesterton, G.K. 8 Clark, Alvan Graham 231 Clausius, Rudolf 214, 215, 217 cosmic clock 39, 40–1 Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) 66, 69, 70–1 Cosmos (Sagan) 177 ‘cosmological redshift’ 64–5 Crab Nebula 176, 176, 177, 179, 180, 180, 181, 181, 182 D dark

Life Is Simple: How Occam's Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe

by Johnjoe McFadden · 27 Sep 2021

convinced that Penzias and Wilson had indeed discovered the microwave remnant of the Big Bang. What most impressed both teams was the smoothness of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as it was later called. It had, as far as they could tell, exactly the same intensity wherever they looked in the sky. Their

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their own microwave detector into space, the Planck Space Observatory, and confirmed both the faint ripples and the extraordinary uniformity of the CMB. FIGURE 2: Cosmic microwave background. The CMB is a kind of photograph taken of the universe when it was less than the size of the Milky Way. Its uniformity tells

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roles in our existence. The first was to help make galaxies. This was something of a puzzle because, as Neil Turok noted (see Introduction), the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is extremely smooth, indicating that at its birth the universe was very simple, being very smooth and rather dull. If it had stayed this

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to inhabit, it will be the simplest. When inhabitants of these universes, like Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, peer into the heavens to discover their cosmic microwave background and perceive its incredible smoothness, they, like Neil Turok, will remain baffled at how their universe has managed to do so much from such a

Coming of Age in the Milky Way

by Timothy Ferris · 30 Jun 1988 · 661pp · 169,298 words

and thinned out by the subsequent expansion of the universe, that human beings billions of years hence will detect with radiotelescopes and will call the cosmic microwave background radiation. This, the epoch of “let there be light,” has a significant effect on the structure of matter. Electrons, relieved from constant harassment by the

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hole to which many other observers repaired to make comparison observations of their own. Studies of the cosmic background radiation—now more often called the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, to distinguish it from primordial neutrinos, gravity waves, or other sorts of useful big-bang relics that may soon be detected—reaped major

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that the universe: Went through an initial period of extremely rapid expansion (an “inflationary” period); Then got hot, producing the photons seen today as the cosmic microwave background radiation, and proceeded to cool as cosmic space expanded; Was originally made of light elements (mostly hydrogen and helium, forged in the hot big bang

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about the physics of the early universe; Alpher and Robert Herman, correcting Gamow’s arithmetic, then predict that the big bang should have produced a cosmic microwave background radiation. Time: 1948–1949 Noteworthy Events: “Renormalization” of quantum electrodynamics removes unwanted infinities from the equations. Time: 1948–1950 Noteworthy Events: Willard Frank Libby develops

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Brookhaven National Laboratory, confirming a prediction of the Gell-Mann-Ne’eman “eightfold way.” Time: 1965 Noteworthy Events: Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discover the cosmic microwave background radiation, light left over from the big bang. Time: 1967 Noteworthy Events: Chia Lin and Frank Shu show that the spiral arms of galaxies may

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observable universe; their redshifts indicate that their light has been traveling through space for some seventeen billion years. Time: 1990 Noteworthy Events: COBE satellite measures cosmic microwave background radiation; confirms that it displays a black-body spectrum as predicted by the hot big-bang model. Time: 1992 Noteworthy Events: COBE satellite data show

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anisotropies—lumps—in the cosmic microwave background, supporting big-bang prediction that such lumps were the seeds of galaxies and other large-scale cosmic structures. Time: 1998 Noteworthy Events: Astronomers studying Supernovae

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find evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, rather than slowing down as had been presumed. Time: 2000 Noteworthy Events: Measurements of cosmic microwave background anisotropies indicate that cosmic spacetime is flat or nearly so, as predicted by inflationary versions of big-bang theory. Time: 2003 Noteworthy Events: WMAP satellite

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makes high-precision map of cosmic microwave background, supporting earlier CMB studies and yielding an age for the universe of 13.7 billion years, to a quoted accuracy of one percent. *Most dates

Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military

by Neil Degrasse Tyson and Avis Lang · 10 Sep 2018 · 745pp · 207,187 words

lamp and, if its bulb is incandescent, infrared light as well. Meanwhile, across the universe, an ancient, persistent, pervasive sea of microwave radiation forms the cosmic microwave background, a legacy of the Big Bang. Most celestial goings-on emit light in multiple wavelengths simultaneously. For example, the explosion of a massive star—a

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or Herschel. Some things, such as stellar nurseries, glow brilliantly in infrared but are almost completely dark in the visible range. So, too, is the cosmic microwave background. Yet in spite of all the mind-blowing discoveries made in invisible wavelengths since the end of World War II, visible-light detectors still yield

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star; a vast intergalactic void that is helping to propel our galaxy through space by repelling it; an as-yet-unexplained cool region in the cosmic microwave background (imprint from the Big Bang) that may offer the first evidence of the multiverse. They’ve found a large, dim, relatively nearby spheroidal galaxy, similar

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-1) satellites, 204–5, 228, 500n Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 289 Cosgrove, Denis, 89 Cosimo II de’ Medici, 53, 442–43n Cosmic Discovery (Harwit), 151 cosmic microwave background, 171, 199, 399 cosmic rays, 6, 214, 218 counterspace, 236, 237, 322, 373, 393–94, 478–79nn, 531n Counterspace Operations: Air Force Doctrine Document, 322

The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past)

by Cixin Liu · 11 Nov 2014 · 420pp · 119,928 words

subject. “Maybe in the future this theory will be disproven. But two great cosmological discoveries of this century—Hubble’s law, and observation of the cosmic microwave background–show that the big bang theory is currently the most plausible explanation for the origin of the universe.” “Lies!” Shao Lin shouted. Then she began

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more than a Morse code chart. “I don’t understand. This—” “During the next two days, please find a place where you can observe the cosmic microwave background. For specifics, please check the e-mail I’ll send you.” “What … are you going to do?” “I know that your nanomaterial project has been

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anyway.” “I have … seen something, and I’d like your help. Do you know if there are any facilities in China that are observing the cosmic microwave background?” Wang had the urge to talk to someone about what was going on, but he thought it best to not let too many people know

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about the countdown that only he could see. “The cosmic microwave background? What made you interested in that? I guess you really have run into some problems.… Have you been to see Yang Dong’s mother yet

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she won’t hire a caretaker. If there’s some task around the home that she needs help with, please help her.… Oh, right, the cosmic microwave background. You can ask Yang’s mother. Before she retired, she was an astrophysicist. She’s very familiar with such facilities in China.” “Good! I’ll

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around anything.” * * * As Wang was about to leave, he remembered the other purpose for his visit. He mentioned to Ye his wish to observe the cosmic microwave background. “Oh, that. There are two places in China that work on it. One is an observatory in Ürümqi—I think it’s a project by

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to be retired; the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, WMAP, launched in 2003; and Planck, the space observatory launched by the European Space Agency in 2009. Cosmic microwave background radiation very precisely matched the thermal black body spectrum at a temperature of 2.7255 K and was highly isotropic—meaning nearly uniform in every

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direction—with only tiny temperature fluctuations at the parts per million range. Sha Ruishan’s job was to create a more detailed map of the cosmic microwave background using observational data. The lab wasn’t very big. Equipment for receiving satellite data was squeezed into the main computer room, and three terminals displayed

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kind of data he wanted to see. “I want to see the overall fluctuation in the cosmic microwave background.” “Can you … be more specific?” “What I mean is … I want to see the isotropic fluctuation in the overall cosmic microwave background, between one and five percent,” he said, quoting from Shen’s email. Sha grinned. Starting

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it you’re not a specialist in the field?” “I work in nanotech.” “Ah, makes sense. But you must have some basic understanding of the cosmic microwave background?” “I don’t know much. I know that as the universe cooled after the big bang, the leftover ‘embers’ became the

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cosmic microwave background. The radiation fills the entire universe and can be observed in the centimeter wavelength range. I think it was back in the sixties when two

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, waving his hands. “Then you must know that unlike the local variations we observe in different parts of the universe, the overall fluctuation in the cosmic microwave background is correlated with the expansion of the universe. It’s a very slow change measured at the scale of the age of the universe. Even

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, Sha typed quickly at the terminal. Soon a flat green line appeared on the screen. “This curve is the real-time measurement of the overall cosmic microwave background—oh, calling it a straight line would be more accurate. The temperature is 2.725±0.002K. The error range is due to the Doppler

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, he would prefer a supernatural saboteur. But Sha then deprived him of this last glimmer of hope. “It’s easy to confirm this. If the cosmic microwave background is fluctuating this much, we should be able to see it with our own eyes.” “What are you talking about? The wavelength of the

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cosmic microwave background is seven centimeters. That’s five orders of magnitude longer than the wavelength of visible light. How can we possibly see it?” “Using 3K glasses.” “

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current level of technology, we could take the six-meter horn antenna used by Penzias and Wilson almost half a century ago to discover the cosmic microwave background and miniaturize it to the size of a pair of glasses. Then we added a converter in the glasses to compress the detected radiation by

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magnitude so that seven-centimeter waves are turned into visible red light. This way, visitors can put on the glasses at night and observe the cosmic microwave background on their own. And now, we can use it to see the universe flicker.” “Where can I find these glasses?” “At the Capital Planetarium. We

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see their shapes clearly. He lifted his head and saw a sky glowing with a faint red light. Just like that, he was seeing the cosmic microwave background. The red light had come from more than ten billion years ago. It was the remnants of the big bang, the still-warm embers of

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. This software can also adjust the membrane so that it’s transparent, but the degree of transparency can be tuned in the frequencies of the cosmic microwave background.… Of course, as sophons fold and unfold into different dimensions, they can display even more amazing ‘miracles.’ The software for accomplishing these is still being

Big Bang

by Simon Singh · 1 Jan 2004 · 492pp · 149,259 words

be coming from all directions because it had existed everywhere in the universe at the moment of recombination. Anybody who could detect this so-called cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB radiation) would prove that the Big Bang really happened. Immortality was waiting for whoever could make the measurement. Unfortunately, Alpher and Herman were

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was grim, the Big Bang was not yet a lost cause. The model could be salvaged and its credibility boosted if somebody could detect the cosmic microwave background radiation predicted by Alpher and Herman. Unfortunately, nobody could be bothered to look for it. Meanwhile, the situation for those who supported the idea of

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galaxies existed in the early universe and should therefore be observable only at great distances, which effectively provides a window onto the early universe 5. Cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation This echo of the Big Bang should still be detectable with sufficiently sensitive equipment 6. Age of the universe The universe is apparently

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appear to be evenly distributed, because they can be born anywhere and at any time out of the matter created in between old galaxies 5. Cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation There was no Big Bang so there was no echo, which is why we cannot detect it 6. Age of the universe The

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assigned to a sub-category of the radio spectrum known as microwaves, which is why this Big Bang echo came to be known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The existence or non-existence of the CMB radiation was critical to the Big Bang versus Steady State debate, and is listed as

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Ryle; young galaxies (e.g. quasars) are observed, but only at great distances, as they would have existed only just after the Big Bang 5. Cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation This echo of the Big Bang was predicted by Gamow, Alpher and Herman, and was found by Penzias and Wilson 6. Age of

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can be born anywhere and at any time out of the matter created in between old galaxies, but this is not backed by observation 5. Cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation Cannot explain the observed CMB radiation 6. Age of the universe There is no evidence for anything older than 20 billion years, yet

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prevented any further scattering of the light, which ever since has been sailing through the universe largely unhindered. This light has become known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, a sort of luminous echo of the Big Bang, which was predicted by Gamow, Alpher, and Herman, and detected by Penzias and Wilson

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determined. These stars therefore play an important role in determining the cosmic distance scale. CMB radiation See cosmic microwave background radiation. COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) A satellite launched in 1989 to make accurate measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Its DMR detector provided the first evidence for variations in the CMB radiation, indicative of

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the early universe that led to galaxy formation. Copernican model The Sun-centred model of the universe, proposed by Nicholas Copernicus in the sixteenth century. cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation A pervasive ‘sea’ of microwave radiation emanating almost uniformly from every direction in the universe, which dates back to the moment of recombination

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of about 3,000°C. From that moment, electromagnetic radiation was able to travel through the universe almost unhindered; today we detect it as the cosmic microwave background radiation. redshift An increase in the wavelength of emitted light caused by the emitter’s recessional velocity and the resulting Doppler effect. In cosmology this

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the head of the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer team. M.D. Lemonick, Echo of the Big Bang (Princeton University Press, 2003) The story of the cosmic microwave background radiation and the WMAP satellite. F. Hoyle, G.R. Burbidge and J.V. Narlikar, A Different Approach to Cosmology (CUP, 2000) The authors, who remain

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-4, 42, 46,49,53, 63,70; errors exposed 53-4; planetary phases predicted 63-6; Sun-centred universe 38, 41, 174 cosmic density 228 cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation 473,476,Table 4,6; detected as noise 430-8; predicted 333-4,336, 430; satellites 453-63, 458, 461,471, 481, 482