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Credit: BOOMERANG Project,
NSF
Explanation:
A race is underway to understand our universe
through background radiation produced during its infancy.
Observationally, increasingly accurate
balloon experiments are pressing to beat future
space-faring satellites to definitive
measurements of universe-determining
spot characteristics of the
cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.
The BOOMERANG balloon mission, depicted above,
reported its new results only two weeks ago, and the
MAXIMA
group is
reporting
new results even today.
Cosmology theorists are submitting a flurry of papers
in an effort to explain the
latest results.
These balloon CMB
measurements appear to imply a universe consistent
geometrically with familiar
Euclidean axioms, but perhaps
complex in unforeseen ways.
Later this year
NASA plans to launch the
MAP
satellite that will study the CMB in greater detail and may determine the
geometry of composition of our universe definitively.
So stay tuned -- one of the greatest races of modern science is
sure to continue.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: universe - cosmic microwave background radiation
Publications with words: universe - cosmic microwave background radiation
See also: