ScienceNews: Ancient dawn refines age of universe

[bystander]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... f_universe

Satellite images reveal new aspects of Big Bang's relic radiation.

Six papers posted online present new satellite snapshots of the earliest light in the universe. By analyzing these images, cosmologists have made the most accurate determination of the age of the cosmos, have directly detected primordial helium gas for the first time and have discovered a key signature of inflation, the leading model of how the cosmos came to be.

[The Code]

Thanks bystander. Excellent read. Great find.

Helium? Does that not..... Never mind.

Mark

[neufer]

______ Cosmic dawn

New maps of temperature and polarization in the distant universe confirm the existence of
hot and cold spots in the cosmic microwave background radiation left over after the Big Bang.
Rings around the spots reveal acoustic waves that were generated only in the early universe.
Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team

<<"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
is a philosophical riddle that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality.

George Berkeley was an Irish philosopher who created and promoted a theory he called "immaterialism." His dictum was "Esse est percipi" - "To be is to be perceived". He talked of objects ceasing to exist once there was nobody around to perceive them. In his work, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, he proposes, "But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park [...] and nobody by to perceive them. [...] The objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees therefore are in the garden [...] no longer than while there is somebody by to perceive them." One source cites him concisely phrasing the question, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really fall?" His philosophical musings had nothing to do with sound at all, neither its physical nature nor its metaphysical possibilities.>>

[bystander]

Discovery News > Space News > The Universe is Precisely 13.75 Billion Years Old (2010 Feb 04)

The Universe is 13.75 billion years old, primordial helium has been spotted for the first time and key evidence for the inflationary period immediately after the Big Bang has been found. But not all the new discoveries by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) appear to fit cosmological theory.

Previously, scientists using data from WMAP measured the time since the Big Bang to be an incredibly precise 13.73 billion years (give or take 0.12 billion years). And now, using the same space-based observatory, the age of the universe has been refined even further, adding another 20 million years to the total (plus or minus 0.11 billion years).*

Using data from the first 7 years of operation, this refined universal age could be arrived at. Previously, the first 5 years of WMAP observations were used; the longer the observatory is operational, the longer the exposure time, therefore the results become more precise.
...
*The uncertainties in the measurements don't come from astronomers lack of accuracy, far from it. When measuring cosmic times and distances, very slight errors may creep into the calculations. Some errors might be down to slight instrumental irregularities or fuzziness in datasets, so as a matter of good practice, scientists calculate a "margin for error" in their results. Ideally this margin should be as small as possible, but it will never disappear all together.

[bystander]

Found: Hawking's initials written into the universe
New Scientist Space - 2010 Feb 07

Is Stephen Hawking a galactic graffiti artist? Hidden away in the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the big bang, the initials "SH" are clear to view (see picture, below). We took a closer look and spotted a donkey, a deer and a parrot.

Stephen Hawking leaves his mark (NASA/WMAP Science Team)

NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe team, who have just released their most detailed map yet of the CMB, used Hawking's initials to draw attention to a serious point.

With each new round of WMAP data – the latest is based on seven years of data – apparent anomalies called "anisotropies" in the CMB have puzzled physicists. Such patterns have also been used to justify various exotic theories.

One notorious anomaly is the "axis of evil", an apparent alignment in the hot and cold regions where there should be randomness. Another is the "cold spot", a particularly large void in the CMB, which some have proposed is evidence of another universe nestling next to our own.

The WMAP team point out that if something as apparently unlikely as Hawking's initials can be found in the CMB data, then the chances of finding other apparently improbable patterns may also be quite high. "I do think there is a bit of a psychological effect," says WMAP's chief scientist Charles Bennett. "People want to find unusual things."

[neufer]

• ---------------------------
  . Stephen Hawking
  . Sherlock Holmes
  . Saddam Hussein
  . Homer Simpson
  . Howard Stern
  ---------------------------
  . Sterling Hayden
  . Susan Hayward
  . S.E. Hinton
  . Shere Hite
  . Sam Houston
  .......................
  . Haile Selassie
  . Henry Morton Stanley
  . Harry Dean Stanton
  . Harriet Beecher Stowe
  ---------------------------

[bystander]

Universe to WMAP: ΛCDM Rules, OK?
Universe Today - 2010 Feb 08

Using the seven-year WMAP data, together with recent results on the large-scale distribution of galaxies, and an updated estimate of the Hubble constant, the present-day age of the universe is 13.75 (plus-or-minus 0.11) billion years, dark energy comprises 72.8% (+/- 1.5%) of the universe's mass-energy, baryons 4.56% (+/- 0.16%), non-baryonic matter (CDM) 22.7% (+/- 1.4%), and the redshift of reionization is 10.4 (+/- 1.2).

[bystander]

Seven-Year WMAP Results: No, They're NOT Anomalies
Universe Today - 2010 Feb 09


Seven Year Microwave Sky (NASA/WMAP Science Team)

Since the day the first Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data were released, in 2003, all manner of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anomalies have been reported; there's been the cold spot that might be a window into a parallel universe, the "Axis of Evil", pawprints of local interstellar neutral hydrogen, and much, much more.

But do the WMAP data really, truly, absolutely contain evidence of anomalies, things that just do not fit within the six-parameters-and-a-model the WMAP team recently reported?

In a word, no.

[bystander]

At Age 7, WMAP Refines "Precision Cosmology"
Sky & Telescope - 2010 Feb 14

Without much public notice, the team running the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) recently released results from the satellite's "seven-year data set," updating the five-year data released in 2008.

WMAP has been mapping the sizes and strengths of the slight irregularities in the cosmic microwave background radiation filling the sky. The microwave background is the "wallpaper" on the sky behind everything else seen in the universe. The slight temperature irregularities written on it (seen on the all-sky map above) tell much about the cosmic conditions just 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when the universe first became transparent to its own radiation — and before, right back to the Big Bang itself.

The two more years of mapping data have further beaten down statistical uncertainties in the cosmic background map, allowing analysts to refine what it tells us about the cosmos as a whole. If the new, revised results didn't make much news, it's because they show modern cosmology to be steady on course. The better data only firm up confidence in what we already thought we knew.