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Credit & Copyright: European Space Agency,
Planck Collaboration
Explanation:
What is our universe made of?
To help find out, ESA launched the
Planck satellite to map,
in unprecedented detail, slight temperature differences on the
oldest surface known --
the background sky left billions of years ago when our universe first
became transparent to light.
Visible in all directions, this
cosmic microwave background
is a complex tapestry that could only show the
hot and cold patterns observed were the universe to be composed of specific
types of energy
that evolved in specific ways.
The results,
reported last week, confirm again that most of our universe
is mostly composed of mysterious and unfamiliar
dark energy, and that even most of the remaining matter energy is
strangely dark.
Additionally, Planck data
impressively
peg the age of the universe at about 13.81 billion years,
slightly older than that
estimated
by various other means including NASA's
WMAP satellite, and the
expansion rate at 67.3 (+/- 1.2) km/sec/Mpc, slightly lower than previous estimates.
Some features
of the above sky map
remain unknown, such as why the temperature fluctuations seem to be
slightly greater on one half of the sky than the other.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: CMBR - universe
Publications with words: CMBR - universe
See also:
- APOD: 2023 December 31 Á Illustris: A Simulation of the Universe
- APOD: 2023 July 5 Á A Map of the Observable Universe
- APOD: 2023 June 29 Á A Message from the Gravitational Universe
- APOD: 2023 June 4 Á Color the Universe
- Video: Powers of Ten
- Earendel: A Star in the Early Universe
- CMB Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe