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
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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.
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