FROM PEA SIZE TO INFINITY SIZE.........NEW EVIDENCE 

SUPPORTS BIG BANG THEORY

 

 (cortesy of www.universe today.com)   no..that is not Adam up there

 On March 17, scientists reported finding the earliest echoes of the Big Bang, not the show. The long-sought evidence supports the idea that the universe inflated in a flash. A scientific theory, called inflation, held that during the first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe grew outward faster than the speed of light. It soon stretched out farther than any telescope can see.

Cosmologists are astronomers who study the early universe or for the simpler among us, they are archeologists but deal with space . They first introduced the theory of inflation more than 30 years ago. Since then, it's become an important part of the explanation for how the universe began. Inflation helps answer some questions raised by the Big Bang. One is why the universe looks the same in every direction. Another is why it isn't clumpier in some directions

Scientists couldn't travel back in time to the Big Bang; it was 13.8 billion years ago. But they also didn't have to. According to that inflation theory, the Big Bang sent waves rippling through the stuff of space. Known as “gravitational waves,” they would alternately squeeze and stretch the fabric of space. So their passage should have left a mark on the farthest reaches of the known universe. Scientists had sought those telltale marks.

For their search, the scientists used a telescope at the South Pole. It’s called BICEP2 (short for the Background Imaging of Cosmological Extragalactic Polarization),for nerds scientists sure do come up with catchy acronyms. 

 

( image courtesy of New York times)

For those of us thinking that a headline reading BICEP2 finds aliens would be awesome...your thoughts are warranted

By gauging the temperature of deep space, this telescope works almost like a giant thermometer. Scientists built it deep in Antarctica. The region’s cold, dry and stable air is perfect for peering deep into space — and back into time.A much better excuse than saying it is colder than hell frozen over.

For 50 years, scientists have known that energy in the form of microwave radiation lingered long after the Big Bang. BICEP2 studies this type of light. The telescope records the behavior of photons. Those particles transport radiation, like this microwave signal. The scientists report finding twists and turns in the patterns of the microwave photons. Kovac’s group now concludes that gravitational waves are the only plausible explanation for that.