JUST IN: A MESSAGE FROM THE DAWN OF TIME...
DAWN OF THE UNIVERSE: DAWN OF TIME
Since the dawn of human understanding, we have been fascinated with the dawn of time. And as we’ve learned more, through our endless investigations, we may be getting closer to the truth.
The Big Bang has been the predominant theory attempting to explain the origins of the Universe for over a century -- since the beginning suspicion in 1912, when Vesto Slipher measured the first Doppler shift of a spiral nebula.
The massive explosion, almost 14 billion years ago, is thought to have been followed by instantaneous expansion, or “inflation,” propelled by gravitational waves.
Gravitational waves are the last untested prediction of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Einstein described them as minuscule ripples in the fabric of the universe that carry energy across space just as waves in the ocean behave.
Now, a US-led team has detected the first evidence of these primordial cosmic ripples. The signal was found by a specialized telescope called BICEP2 (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) at the South Pole.
BICEP2 scans the sky at microwave frequencies, where it picks up the ancient energy from the Big Bang. The South Pole is the closest you can get to space while still standing on the ground, and it offers the driest, clearest air which aids in signal transmissions.
The telescope captured an image of these waves as they continued to ripple through the Universe for another 380,000 years post-Bang, a time before even the stars were formed, when scattered matter sloshed around in space in an infinite sea of white-hot plasma.
The weakened waves are all but impossible to detect, however, because they polarized the radiation in a predictable curly, vortex-like pattern known as the B mode, the image was seen in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the glow that radiates from cooled plasma.
This “message” from the dawn of time marks the dawn of a new age of astrophysics as well. It opens up a whole new window of understanding and is a contender for the Nobel Prize.
BICEP2 is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF also runs the South Pole Station where BICEP2 and the other telescopes used in this work are located. The Keck Foundation also contributed major funding for the construction of the team’s telescopes. NASA, JPL, and the Moore Foundation generously supported the development of the ultra-sensitive detector arrays that made these measurements possible.
Read more about Beautiful Dawn, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink,Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including Celebrating the Beautiful Dawn of A New Year.
Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Dawn in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 01.11.2015. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!
PHOTO CREDITS:
- Photo: Courtesy of Good Even. Artist’s Rendition of Big Bang.
- Photo: by Carl Jones. Artist’s Rendition of Big Bang.
- Photo: by Benoit Theodore. Artist’s Rendition of the Big Bang.
- Photo: Courtesy of ESA and the Planck Collaboration. 14 Billion Year History of the Universe.
- Photo: by Steffen Richter, courtesy of Harvard University. BICEP 2 Telescope.
- Photo: Courtesy of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. Cosmic Background Radiation.
- Photo: Courtesy of BICEP 2 Collaboration. Cosmic Curl.
- Photo: Courtesy of the ESA. Cosmic Background Radiation.
- Photo: by Markus Pössel. Gravitational Ripple Effect.
- Photo: Courtesy of Ohio State Astronomy Department. Cosmic Background Radiation.
- Photo: Courtesy of NASA. Cosmic Background Radiation.
- Photo: Courtesy of NASA. Cosmic Background Radiation.
