Best-Ever Map of Early Universe Challenges and Excites Cosmologists

quick Summary

• Scientists have created the most detailed map yet of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), using data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT in Chile).
• CMB is radiation from 380,000 years after the Big Bang and has shifted from visible light to microwaves due to the universe’s expansion.
• The new map enhances precision regarding key cosmological factors like universe age, size, and expansion rate while confirming existing observations under the lambda-CDM model.
• The age of the universe remains at 13.8 billion years; its expansion rate (hubble constant) is reported as between 67-68 km/s per megaparsec with greater accuracy.
• Previous missions by COBE, WMAP, and Planck spacecraft offered foundational data on CMB; ACT improves resolution but can only image half of Earth’s sky due to being ground-based.
• Polarisation mapping in this study adds insight into how CMB light evolved over time but didn’t reveal anomalies or alternate particles/forces that might reconcile “Hubble tension” debates in cosmology.
• ACT data availability may spur scientific analysis globally despite ACT shutting down post-study completion (2017-2022). Future high-resolution mappings are unlikely soon due to infrastructure limits-such as those in Tibet or Greenland.

!6300.jpeg”>Jodrell Bank with Lovell Telescope