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Credit & Copyright: WMAP Science Team,
NASA
Explanation:
How could part of the early universe be so cold?
No one is sure, and many astronomers now think that the
CMB Cold Spot on the
cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation is not particularly noteworthy.
As the early universe expanded and cooled, it suddenly and predictably became transparent.
The photons that come to us from
that epoch
are seen all around us as the CMB.
Now this radiation field is quite uniform but does have slight warm and cool spots
that tell us a great deal about the
early universe that could have imprinted them.
Except, possibly, one spot.
This CMB Cold Spot, circled above on the
WMAP 7-year all-sky map, has attracted attention as possibly being too large
and too cold to be easily explained.
Published speculation has included
spectacular progenitor hypotheses that involve a
supervoid,
a cosmic texture,
or even
quantum entanglement
with a
parallel universe.
Quite possibly, though, even a
more mundane universe might be expected to show such
a statistical peculiarity,
and so explanations of the CMB Cold Spot like these
might say
more about
human imagination than the early universe.
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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: CMB - cosmic microwave background radiation - WMAP
Publications with words: CMB - cosmic microwave background radiation - WMAP
See also: