Exquisite Map of Cosmos Hints at Universe's Birth

A map of the universe based on its oldest light is giving astronomers hope that they may be able to answer some of the deepest questions of the cosmos, including how it got started.

Scientists met this week at the University of California, Davis to pore over the treasure trove of data published two months ago from the European Planck spacecraft. The observatory measures what's called thecosmic microwave background— light spread across the sky that dates from soon after the Big Bang that kick-started the universe.

"We have the best map ever of the cosmic microwave background, and that shows us what the universe was like 370,000 years after the Big Bang," said Charles Lawrence, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California who is the lead U.S. scientist on the Planck project. Lawrence and other researchers summed up the consequences of the meeting, called the Davis Cosmic Frontiers Conferences, in a call to reporters Friday (May 24). [Gallery: Planck Spacecraft Sees Big Bang Relics]

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) was first discovered in 1964, and since then a series of experiments, culminating in Planck, have measured it in increasing detail, providing cosmologists a direct line to test theories about the beginnings of the universe. Planck launched in 2009, and the recent data represent the product of the spacecraft's first 15.5 months of observations.

"Rarely in the history of science has there been such a triumphant transformation from really complete ignorance to really deep insights in just a few decades," said Andreas Albrecht, chair of the University of California, Davis Department of Physics.

The CMB has provided strong support for the theory of cosmic inflation, which suggests that the universe ballooned in size during a period of exponential growth within the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Variations in the temperature of the CMB light are thought to correspond to tiny density ripples in the universe caused by quantum fluctuations when it first formed. These ripples, in turn, gave rise to the structure we see today in the form of stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

Studying the CMB's variations in detail could help scientists differentiate between various models of inflation, and answer the many unsolved puzzles remaining, such as what happened before inflation, what sparked it, and which version of inflation took place.

"If it weren't for the wonderful data, I'd be thinking maybe some of these problems are too difficult for us right now," Albrecht said. "But it's thrilling to be inspired by all this data and the tremendous success we have had with the theories so far to really plunge in and wrestle these deep questions."

Already some "anomalies" in the Planck data appear to deviate from the standard expectations, and if borne out, these deviations could point the way toward new physics, scientists say. For example, the basic picture of inflation predicts that the universe should have expanded uniformly in all directions, but the CMB's temperature variations appear to be sixed and spaced differently toward one side of the universe than the other. In addition, the variations don't seem to behave the same on small scales as they do on large scales.

"It's hard to know what to make of these anomalies," said Lloyd Knox, a University of California, Davis physicist who's leading the U.S. team inferring cosmology parameters from Planck's data. "That these are real features of the microwave background sky has really been firmed up by Planck, but how to make sense of them isn't clear, so there's some excitement about them and some people are going after this as a clue."

Ultimately, all of the scientists expressed their thrill at being able to plunge into some of the thorniest questions about the universe using the exquisite data from Planck. Right now, they said, astrophysicists have a rare opportunity to make huge leaps in progress, and the researchers consider themselves lucky to be working at this point in the history of science.

"I don't think you could do better than doing cosmology right now; it's just amazing," Albrecht said.

The 10 Most Amazing Discoveries of Modern Astronomy

Astronomy has come a long way in the past 100 years, with revelations from Einstein, Bohr, Hubble and other great astronomers, physicists, and scientists.  While certainly some of the greatest discoveries in astronomy of all time include the discovery of the other planets of the solar system, the true relation of the Earth to the Sun, and the mathematical calculations for planetary orbits by Kepler and universal gravitation by Newton, more shocking discoveries have been made in modern astronomy than in times past, and shows us just how cool our universe actually is.

Dark Energy
As we’ll discuss later in this article, it has been discovered using the Hubble constant and measurements of supernovae of distant stars that the universe is not contracting, nor is it static (as Einstein thought), but instead, the universe is expanding, and the expansion is speeding up. To account for this, a hypothetical form of energy known as Dark Energy has been proposed and is being investigated by leading astrophysicists and cosmologists. Whether it is a scalar property of space time itself, as proposed through a cosmological constant, or something dynamic, known as quintessence, is a matter of large debate, but current astrophysics places a full 74% of the energy in the universe as being dark energy.
Dark Matter
Dark matter (different from Dark Energy) is a type of matter that has been proposed to exist to explain gravitational effects within galaxies. When astronomers were able to measure the mass of galaxies and the orbital speed of stars within a galaxy, they noticed discrepancies between the expected results and the calculated results. Thus, a new type of matter was classified as dark matter, which is matter that is simply not detected using current measurement techniques involving electromagnetic radiation.
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
Cosmic microwave background radiation, or CMBR, is a form of electromagnetic radiation that fills the universe and is left over from the Big Bang. Two Bell Telephone employees were working on a radiometer for satellite communication experiments, when they discovered 3.5 K in excess temperature that they could not account for. The CMBR is essentially the remaining radiation left from a previous stage in the universe’s history, currently theorized as the Big Bang.
Exoplanets
After discovering the various planets and non-planetary objects in our solar system, astronomers began looking at other stars in attempts to discover new planets. By analyzing the light spectra coming from distant stars, and also their brightness plotted over time, astronomers have been able to discover a large number of planets, starting in 1992 with the discovery of several planets orbiting a pulsar.
Black Holes
Black holes, which are largely known due to Stephen Hawking’s work, are a region of space where nothing, not even light, can escape, due to the massive gravitational pull from a single point in space with infinite density, known as a singularity. Beyond the event horizon, nothing can be seen and nothing can escape. Now, astrophysicists believe that black holes form as the result of larger stars collapsing and the electron and neutron degeneracy pressure cannot hold even atoms intact. Astrophysicists now believe that super-massive black holes exist at the center of most spiral galaxies and most galaxies in general.
General Relativity
General relativity is one of the theories presented by Albert Einstein, which proposes a unified description of gravity as a property of space and time, and allows for proper explanation of redshift of light and bending of light by massive objects. Largely verified through a variety of tests, one of the most famous proofs of general relativity occurred during a solar eclipse, during which the light from visible stars was mapped and extrapolated to locate the stars, which appeared in a different place than the stars actually were, due to the warping of light.
Redshifting and The Hubble Constant
Hubble’s Law allowed for the calculation of the speed at which galaxies are receding away from Earth, which demonstrates that galaxies are moving away from us, and thus provided the general basis for the Big Bang Theory. This then later contributed to the work by astronomers that demonstrated that galaxies are expanding away from us even faster than predicted, based on the redshifts of distant supernovae, as mentioned earlier in this article.
Gamma Ray Bursts
Gamma ray bursts are, quite literally, bursts of gamma rays coming from distant galaxies, that are suspected to come from extremely energetic explosions. GRBs are the most luminous electromagnetic events in the universe, and most astrophysicists believe that GRBs come from supernova explosions and occasionally the merger of binary neutron stars.
The Age of the Universe
Thanks to the use of redshifting measurements, the discovery of cosmic background radiation, and the age of the globular clusters of ancient stars in galaxies, astrophysicists have been able to calculate the age of the universe, which is currently estimated at 13.75 billion years.
The Big Bang and Inflationary Theory
As mentioned previously, the discovery of the CMBR, redshifting, and the faster than expected recession of galaxies led astronomers and astrophysicists to theorize the Big Bang, which is currently accepted as the model for the formation of the universe. The Big Bang was not an explosion within space and time, but instead, the creation of spacetime from nothing. While implications for our role in the universe, the possible existence of other universes, and what, if anything, occurred before, are the subject of speculation, the Big Bang model has survived a variety of tests and scrutiny to become widely accepted. However, with the discovery of the CMBR, it was discovered that the temperature of the universe is widely uniform, which would be impossible through traditional thermal interactions (the concept of the universe being flat, homogeneous and isotropic is known as the cosmological principle). Thus, Inflationary Theory was introduced, which suggests that the universe started with extremely rapid exponential expansion, driven by a negative pressure energy (somewhat reminiscent of Dark Energy), but before inflation, the universe was causally connected and thus had a balanced temperature.

Source : wildammo.com/2010/10/22/the-10-most-amazing-discoveries-of-modern-astronomy/

Amazing Eclipse This Month

    An amazing event will be happening this coming Month of May this year Two Thousand and Thirteen (2013). It will happen on May 10 and even on May 25. We should witness this event. It is not frequently happening. What is it? It is a Solar Eclipse and a Lunar Eclipse.

    What is a Solar Eclipse? It occurs when the Moon is in between our planet Earth and the Sun. This means that the moon will pass between the sun and earth. The moon will block the Sun and can be seen from earth. Only it happens when it`s New Moon. On the 10th of May, Annular Eclipse will occur. Annular Eclipse is one type of Eclipse wherein the sun and moon are in line (exactly) but the apparent size of the Sun is bigger than of the moon. So, the edge of the Sun will become a bright ring surrounding the dark disk of the moon. The ring will be visible and this is what we call the Annular Eclipse. And this is the type of eclipse we can witness this May 10. 

    There`s more. On May 25 of the same year, A lunar eclipse will occur. It is the Penumbral Lunar Eclipse. What is it? It is when the moon passes through the Earth`s penumbral shadow. The moon is a dark celestial body but we can see it because it reflects the Sun`s rays back to our planet. When the three celestial bodies form a perfect straight line (Earth will be the middle), the moon will travel through the outer part of our planet`s shadow called the penumbra. This means that all of the Moon's visible surface still receives some direct sunlight - but the Earth obscures parts of the Sun, as seen from the Moon. That`s the explanation of the penumbral lunar eclipse.

    As a wanderer in this great wild and wide world, to see this event is fascinating and an event that we should not let go. We should witness this and see how the universe is made great. A Solar and Lunar Eclipse will not happen frequently so we should let our friends know it. We don`t want to miss this thing and so does our friends. Let your Friends know so that entire humanity will witness this eclipse. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), there will be five eclipse that will happen this year. One already happened last April 25. Other eclipse will happen as said on May 10, May 25, October 18 and last eclipse this year would be on November 3.