The Herald of Everett, Washington
HeraldNet Newsletters  Newsletters: Sign up  Green editions icon Green editions

'Baby picture' shows universe 13.8 billion years old

  • This image released Thursday shows the afterglow of the Big Bang.

    Planck Collaboration via NASA

    This image released Thursday shows the afterglow of the Big Bang.

The Washington Post
Cosmologists have released the most detailed "baby picture" yet of the early universe, a portrait that helps answer some of the deepest questions of science while providing enough surprises to keep scientists busy for years.
The images captured by a space telescope show the universe is 13.8 billion years old, 100 million years older than previously estimated. The results also reinforce a key theory scientists have about how the universe was formed, exploding from subatomic size to its current expanse in what one scientist described as "one nano-nano-nano-nano second after the Big Bang." And they also revise estimates of how much matter and mysterious dark energy make up the universe.
The information released Thursday from the European Space Agency's Planck space telescope "is the most sensitive and sharpest map ever" of that light, said Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics for NASA. "It's as if we have gone from standard television to high-definition television; new and important details have become crystal-clear," he said.
But the new map raises questions: some features that don't quite fit with the current understanding about the age, contents and fundamental characteristics of the universe, based on a simple model developed by scientists. For example, the model predicts the afterglow should look roughly the same everywhere. But the pattern is asymmetrical on two halves of the sky. There is also an unexplained cold spot, larger than expected, that covers a patch in the southern sky.
"Imagine investigating the foundations of a house and finding that parts of them are weak," said Francois Bouchet of the Institute d'Astrophysique de Paris. "You might not know whether the weaknesses will eventually topple the house, but you'd probably start looking for ways to reinforce it pretty quickly all the same."
Scientists say the Planck space mission is cosmology's equivalent of the human genome project.
"Just as DNA determines many individual characteristics, the map from the space probe shows the seeds from which our current universe grew," said Marc Kamionkowski, professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. Cosmologists have a long road ahead, he said, to understand the detailed physical processes by which the patterns of light gave rise to stars, galaxies and planets.The Planck telescope, named for the German physicist Max Planck, the originator of quantum physics, was launched in 2009 and has been scanning the skies since, mapping the cosmic microwave background.This radiation gives scientists a snapshot of the universe 370,000 years after the Big Bang.
Story tags » Astronomy

More Nation & World Headlines


HeraldNet Headlines

Top stories and breaking news updates