Fermi National Laboratory


Results from the first year observations of the WMAP satellite Joint Astro/Particle Physics Seminar

Monday, February 24, 2003
One West
2:30 PM

Results From the First Year Observations of the WMAP Satellite

Steve Meyer, University of Chicago

NASA recently released the best "baby picture" of the Universe ever taken. Patterns in the big bang afterglow were frozen in place only 380,000 years after the big bang, a number nailed down by this latest observation. These patterns are tiny temperature differences within this extraordinarily evenly dispersed microwave light bathing the universe, which now averages a frigid 2.73 degrees above absolute zero temperature. Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) resolves slight temperature fluctuations, which vary by only millionths of a degree. The WMAP team found that the big bang and inflation theories continue to ring true. The contents of the universe include 4 percent atoms (ordinary matter), 23 percent of an unknown type of dark matter, and 73 percent of a mysterious dark energy. The new measurements even shed light on the nature of the dark energy, which acts as a sort of an anti-gravity.

For more information about the seminar, please contact Scott Dodelson at (630) 840-2426, dodelson@fnal.gov.

last modified 2/19/2003   email Fermilab

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