Posted on 01/29/2005 8:29:40 PM PST by IllumiNaughtyByNature
A new analysis of the "echo" of the Big Bang has left cosmologists scratching their heads and could throw a monkey wrench into efforts to understand how the universe began.
U.S. and European scientists analyzed the distribution of "hot" and "cold" regions -- areas that are putting out greater or less amounts of energy than the average -- of the cosmic microwave background radiation (the so-called echo). What they found was unexpected: an apparent correlation between those hot and cold spots and the orientation and motion of our solar system.
The study, by Case Western scientists and the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Geneva, is based on data from the WMAP satellite, the NASA spacecraft that began mapping the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation in fine detail in 2001.
The observed correlation is troubling on several fronts.
First of all, there is no reason to believe that the finding reflects any physical connection between our local astronomical neighbourhood and the universe at large.
As Dr. Starkman puts it: "None of us believe that the universe knows about the solar system, or that the solar system knows about the universe."
Far more plausible, he says, is that something within our solar system is producing or absorbing microwaves. That means that anyone doing cosmology would have to take into account such "local" contamination.
(The correlation involves the largest-scale fluctuations of the CMB radiation. If some of those fluctuations are a local rather than a cosmological phenomenon, it would mean that the truly cosmological large-scale fluctuations are even less intense than previously thought.)
There is, however, another possibility: The patterns seen by Dr. Starkman and his colleagues might simply be a fluke -- an accidental alignment between the solar system and patterns in the CMB radiation.
If the correlation is real, however, it could cast doubt on the popular "inflation" model of the early universe. That model, which builds on the well-established Big Bang theory, says the universe underwent a period of incredibly rapid, exponential growth in the first split-second of its existence.
One of its predictions is that the universe should be nearly perfectly "smooth," that the CMB fluctuations should be equally intense at all scales.
An analogy with a musical instrument can be helpful: If you hit a drum, you hear many tones at the same time -- a primary tone as well as many overtones, or "harmonics." The inflation model predicts that all the overtones in the CMB should be equally intense, but instead "we're missing the bass," Dr. Starkman says. "And what bass there is seems to be not generated by the universe, but by something local."
Other physicists are responding with caution to the finding.
"There is no way to judge the real significance of such a result," says Charles Bennett of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the leader of the WMAP team.
It all depends on how we perceive "chance," and how we evaluate probabilities, Dr. Bennett says. The alignments seen in the CMB may seem unlikely, he says, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they require new physics to explain them.
He points out that "improbable things happen frequently because there are lots of opportunities for them to occur." In other words, he says, the newly discovered CMB correlations are most likely the product of chance.
Dan Falk is a science journalist based in Toronto.
ping
"Let there be light," still makes more sense to me than any theory I've heard from the goofball scientists.
I find these results appealing.
I never liked the inflation model for the universe... it seemed way to complicated and without any physical mechanism.
Recent astronomical results show that the universe is accelerating in its expansion. Therefore, with inflation, the universe expanded quickly, then slowed, then started expanding faster again.
Why would this happen? There is no physical reason for it.
A better model would be one without inflation, then the acceleration of the expansion of the universe becomes monotonic, which is more appealing.
Hmmmm. Scientists today are no closer to determining the origin of our existence than earliest man.
Its all kind of mysterious. But, of course, if there is one thing the intelligensia knows, it is that there is no God.
Hee, hee, hee.
One of the things I find confusing is that while the universe as a whole is expanding, the local group of galaxies, after expanding for billions of years, has started to contract.
Eventually, Andromeda is going to pass right through the Milky Way.
I wonder what it is about this part of the universe that causes this behavior.
Didn't these scientists ever hear of co-inky-dinks?
Of course, I'm sure there are many astro-physicists that are horribly disappointed that I disaprove of their theories. :-)
I grant I am an oddity, but how did I cast doubt on the theory of the universe?
You mean it's not 42 or that Ford Prefect is a black guy?
space ping
bump
Hmmmm. "The knowing universe conundrum" again. Makes you wonder if it's time to reconsider the devotion to Unintelligent Design.
I < enter>
You have:
Advanced tea substitute
Pocket lint
No tea
Hey, I can't remember all of it, that was years ago, back in the DOS ages...
Could this be "cosmic warming" and "cosmic cooling"? If so, we need to invite the environmentalists into this whole episode and let them fix it for us. The earth is probably putting out too much of something and destroying the cosmic sphere.
Okay. I confess. I'll admit it. I caused the "Big Bang".
One day I fired my .44 mag while not wearing proper ear protection. Man! That was the Big Bang. Believe me.
(And now you know "the rest of the story")
No, the Big Bang is when you ask "Did the universe explode for you too?"
Okay. I'm willing to accept that Fiddlstix is G-d.
But answer me this: What came before the .44 magnum?
Answer THAT, smart guy.
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