APOD: The CMB Cold Spot (2011 Mar 21)

[APOD Robot]

The CMB Cold Spot

Explanation: How could part of the early universe be so cold? No one is sure, and many astronomers now think that the CMB Cold Spot on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation is not particularly noteworthy. As the early universe expanded and cooled, it suddenly and predictably became transparent. The photons that come to us from that epoch are seen all around us as the CMB. Now this radiation field is quite uniform but does have slight warm and cool spots that tell us a great deal about the early universe that could have imprinted them. Except, possibly, one spot. This CMB Cold Spot, circled above on the WMAP 7-year all-sky map, has attracted attention as possibly being too large and too cold to be easily explained. Published speculation has included spectacular progenitor hypotheses that involve a supervoid, a cosmic texture, or even quantum entanglement with a parallel universe. Quite possibly, though, even a more mundane universe might be expected to show such a statistical peculiarity, and so explanations of the CMB Cold Spot like these might say more about human imagination than the early universe.

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[Beyond]

Amazing!! For a weekend APOD, this one is very busy with information. RJN & company sure scored a 3-pointer with this one!

[Guest]

Hmmmm. The Universe's belly button.

[alphachapmtl]

Looking at the image, that spot doesn't look colder than other spots.

[Dread]

I was thinking the same thing. There are larger cold spots on the map, and there are spots equally as cool, what makes this one stand out?

[Alberto Fernandez]

Not being a specialist in that particular area, let me add my twopence. You can´t just look at the image and decide which one is the largest anisotropy (i.e. cold or hot spot). First, about size, you can be fooled by the particularities of this projection--in this one that spot happens to lie close to a border, and is highly distorted. Second,about colour, the contrast scale chosen to depict the map is not chosen to be optimal in showing the extreme points, but the general contrast--so that blue or red spots that saturate the scale can have very different values, being much hotter or colder than other equally blue or red spots.

Looking at the complete information, if I remember correctly, the cold spot is close to 5sigma away from the average. Depending on the statistics you choose to use and the analysis you perform, that puts it on the verge of being "weird but expectable" (like a 2.20m man walking on the streets) or being "wildly unexpected" (like a 3.15m man walking on the streets). That´s actually where most of the action about this spot is going on...

[JohnD]

I asked myself the saame question when I saw this APOD.
The links in the text are many and varied, but the Wiki articles on CMB are beyond me.

Like Alberto, I now wonder if the author of that text put the answer in the last sentence, that plays with freak shots in basket ball, Joni Mitchell and Rorshach testing. Do they allege that these variations are merely statistical, that they are exaggerated and amplified images of the quantum differences in very small areas of the primordial cosmos, that the human ability to see patterns in shapes further amplifies by giving apparent significance?

See http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/ ... rn_Rec.pdf
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line on "Chance alignments"

John

[inertnet]

Hmmmm. The Universe's belly button.

Or its stem.

[Indigo_Sunrise]

What I really can't wait to see is

Tomorrow's picture: star crosssed

What could that third 'S' posssibly sssignify?

[moikeyAtt.net]

Where am I, in that picture? In the center?

[Chris Peterson]

Where am I, in that picture? In the center?

You are not in the image. You are the viewer, and the image shows the sky all around you. (In that sense, you are very much at the center, but that center is not part of the image itself.)

[thongar]

This once again proves that in physics the macro duplicates the micro....

The same heating/cooling properties affect my Cast Iron Frying Pan.

THEREFORE : I would like to put forward the following:

FRYING PAN AXIUM - For Every Given Heated Surface, A Proportion Of Said Surface Will Heat/Cool Faster Than Other Portions Of The Surface, Irregardless Of Size, Statistics And Other Things Like That. It Just Does, Get Over It!

[inertnet]

Where am I, in that picture? In the center?

Imagine that picture projected on the inside of a large ball, and yourself at the center of the ball.

[Chris Peterson]

THEREFORE : I would like to put forward the following:

FRYING PAN AXIUM - For Every Given Heated Surface, A Proportion Of Said Surface Will Heat/Cool Faster Than Other Portions Of The Surface, Irregardless Of Size, Statistics And Other Things Like That. It Just Does, Get Over It!

Almost. But it is because of statistical processes, not irregardless of them.

[thongar]

THEREFORE : I would like to put forward the following:

FRYING PAN AXIUM - For Every Given Heated Surface, A Proportion Of Said Surface Will Heat/Cool Faster Than Other Portions Of The Surface, Irregardless Of Size, Statistics And Other Things Like That. It Just Does, Get Over It!

Almost. But it is because of statistical processes, not irregardless of them.

Actually: The observation usually comes LONG before the mathematician uses Statistics to prove it. Afterall Statistics is in the eye of the beholder.

And you are correct.

Irregardless
Thongar

[maxxx]

It would be unusual to conclude that there are no further structures to be aware of as our distance horizon expands. From the smallest to the largest scales we have seen amazing anomolies in structure from solar systems to galaxies. To think we now know all large scale structure would be the equivalent of thinking the Milky way was it. Other galaxies were unknown. I think there is more structure left to discover.

Man's ultimate Nietzsche-like goal, to contemplate the navel of the universe has been completed here on this website.

[maxxx]

There's a story, Once apon a time:

The Himalayan monks had just finished their centuries long task. Mankind's purpose, of counting all of
God's stars. The universe being fully discovered and their work being completed and they prepared for the end. Unnoticed, above them in the night sky, the stars slowly began winking out, ... one by one.

[Indigo_Sunrise]

This once again proves that in physics the macro duplicates the micro....

The same heating/cooling properties affect my Cast Iron Frying Pan.

THEREFORE : I would like to put forward the following:

FRYING PAN AXIUM - For Every Given Heated Surface, A Proportion Of Said Surface Will Heat/Cool Faster Than Other Portions Of The Surface, Irregardless Of Size, Statistics And Other Things Like That. It Just Does, Get Over It!

THEREFORE : I would like to put forward the following:

FRYING PAN AXIUM - For Every Given Heated Surface, A Proportion Of Said Surface Will Heat/Cool Faster Than Other Portions Of The Surface, Irregardless Of Size, Statistics And Other Things Like That. It Just Does, Get Over It!

Almost. But it is because of statistical processes, not irregardless of them.

Actually: The observation usually comes LONG before the mathematician uses Statistics to prove it. Afterall Statistics is in the eye of the beholder.

And you are correct.

Irregardless
Thongar

GRAMMAR POLICE ALERT:

There is no such word as irregardless.

It's regardless. Only.
Thank you and have a nice day.

[BMAONE23]

This would be a great image to see from the internal perspective. Is there an image of this that has been projected on the inside of a sphere that can be manipulated in different directions? Similar to the Google Earth Street View images.

[orin stepanek]

This CMB Cold Spot, circled above on the WMAP 7-year all-sky map, has attracted attention as possibly being too large and too cold to be easily explained. Published speculation has included spectacular progenitor hypotheses that involve a supervoid, a cosmic texture, or even quantum entanglement with a parallel universe.

There's that parallel universe! Do you suppose that could explain dark matter?

[rstevenson]

There's a story, Once apon a time:

The Himalayan monks had just finished their centuries long task. Mankind's purpose, of counting all of
God's stars. The universe being fully discovered and their work being completed and they prepared for the end. Unnoticed, above them in the night sky, the stars slowly began winking out, ... one by one.

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke.

Rob

[DonQHoti]

Maybe the Cold Spot is the omphalus.

[thongar]

GRAMMAR POLICE ALERT:

There is no such word as irregardless.

It's regardless. Only.
Thank you and have a nice day.

Regardless of what you say, and irrespective of the grammer police, it is a known fact that if I say a certain word and you know what I mean by that word, I fits the definition of a word.

That being said, I like the word, it rolls off the tongue, it sounds nice. and it means something to me.

Irregardless, I respect your opinion. BTW the axium still holds.

enjoy

[bystander]

If ir·regard·less were a word, it probably wouldn't mean what you want it to mean. The suffix ·less means without. So regard·less means, literally, without regard. The prefix ir· means not. So ir·regard·less means not without regard, or, removing the double negative, with regard. Probably quite the opposite of the meaning you were trying to convey.

What is an axium?

[NoelC]

Irregardless, I respect your opinion. BTW the axium still holds.

You are helping to destroy the game of Scrabble.

My son used the word ZA the other day for something like 33 points. It survived the challenge because apparently enough teenagers use ZA to mean (the much more difficult to say word) PIZZA that it has actually been added to the official Scrabble dictionary.

Perhaps this is how, with a sufficiently populated and connected planet, we evolve a language for everyone. It won't be like anything used in the past, but everyone (and no one) will understand it.

Certainly I'm far from perfect when it comes to using English, but somehow I've never felt the need to add to it.

RIP English language. I miss you already.

-Noel