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Credit & Copyright: 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:
- APOD: 2024 December 1 Á Cosmic Latte: The Average Color of the Universe
- APOD: 2024 October 20 Á Dark Matter in a Simulated Universe
- APOD: 2024 July 1 Á Time Spiral
- APOD: 2023 December 31 Á Illustris: A Simulation of the Universe
- APOD: 2023 July 5 Á A Map of the Observable Universe
- APOD: 2023 June 29 Á A Message from the Gravitational Universe
- APOD: 2023 June 4 Á Color the Universe