NASA today released the best “baby picture” of the
Universe ever taken; the image contains such stunning detail
that it may be one of the most important scientific results
of recent years.
Scientists using NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
(WMAP), during a sweeping 12-month observation of the entire
sky, captured the new cosmic portrait, capturing the
afterglow of the big bang, called the cosmic microwave
background.
“We’ve captured the infant universe in sharp focus, and from
this portrait we can now describe the universe with
unprecedented accuracy,” said Dr. Charles L. Bennett of the
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt Md., and the
WMAP Principal Investigator. “The data are solid, a real gold
mine,” he said.
One of the biggest surprises revealed in the data is the
first generation of stars to shine in the universe first
ignited only 200 million years after the big bang, much
earlier than many scientists had expected.
In addition, the new portrait precisely pegs the age of the
universe at 13.7 billion years old, with a remarkably small
one percent margin of error.
The WMAP team found that the big bang and Inflation theories
continue to ring true. The contents of the universe include 4
percent atoms (ordinary matter), 23 percent of an unknown
type of dark matter, and 73 percent of a mysterious dark
energy. The new measurements even shed light on the nature of
the dark energy, which acts as a sort of an anti-gravity.
“These numbers represent a milestone in how we view our
universe,” said Dr. Anne Kinney, NASA director for astronomy
and physics. “This is a true turning point for cosmology.”
The light we see today, as the cosmic microwave background,
has traveled over 13 billion years to reach us. Within this
light are infinitesimal patterns that mark the seeds of what
later grew into clusters of galaxies and the vast structure
we see all around us.
Patterns in the big bang afterglow were frozen in place only
380,000 years after the big bang, a number nailed down by
this latest observation. These patterns are tiny temperature
differences within this extraordinarily evenly dispersed
microwave light bathing the universe, which now averages a
frigid 2.73 degrees above absolute zero temperature. WMAP
resolves slight temperature fluctuations, which vary by only
millionths of a degree.
Theories about the evolution of the universe make specific
predictions about the extent of these temperature patterns.
Like a detective, the WMAP team compared the unique
“fingerprint” of patterns imprinted on this ancient light
with fingerprints predicted by various cosmic theories and
found a match.
WMAP will continue to observe the cosmic microwave background
for an additional three years, and its data will reveal new
insights into the theory of Inflation and the nature of the
dark energy.
“This is a beginning of a new stage in our study of the early
universe,” said WMAP team member Prof. David N. Spergel of
Princeton University, N.J. “We can use this portrait not only
to predict the properties of the nearby universe, but can
also use it to understand the first moments of the big bang,”
he said.
WMAP is named in honor of David Wilkinson of Princeton
University, a world-renown cosmologist and WMAP team member
who died in September 2002.
Launched on June 30, 2001, WMAP maintains a distant orbit
about the second Lagrange Point, or “L2,” a million miles
from Earth.
WMAP is the result of a partnership between the GSFC and
Princeton University. Additional Science Team members are
located at Brown University, Providence R.I., the University
of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, the University of
Chicago, and the University of California, Los Angeles. WMAP
is part of the Explorer program, managed by GSFC.
For more information, including high-quality images, videos
and press products, refer to:
