WMAP REVEALS NEUTRINOS, END OF DARK AGES, FIRST SECOND OF UNIVERSE
11 April 2008 by Karen
WASHINGTON – NASA released this week (March 7, 2008) five years of data collected by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) that refines our understanding of the universe and its development. It is a treasure trove of information, including at least three major findings:
* New evidence that a sea of cosmic neutrinos permeates the universe
* Clear evidence the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog
* Tight new constraints on the burst of expansion in the universe’s first trillionth of a second
“We are living in an extraordinary time,” said Gary Hinshaw of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Ours is the first generation in human history to make such detailed and far-reaching measurements of our universe.”
WMAP measures a remnant of the early universe - its oldest light. The conditions of the early times are imprinted on this light. It is the result of what happened earlier, and a backlight for the later development of the universe. This light lost energy as the universe expanded over 13.7 billion years, so WMAP now sees the light as microwaves. By making accurate measurements of microwave patterns, WMAP has answered many longstanding questions about the universe’s age, composition and development.
The universe is awash in a sea of cosmic neutrinos. These almost weightless sub-atomic particles zip around at nearly the speed of light. Millions of cosmic neutrinos pass through you every second.
“A block of lead the size of our entire solar system wouldn’t even come close to stopping a cosmic neutrino,” said science team member Eiichiro Komatsu of the University of Texas at Austin.
WMAP has found evidence for this so-called “cosmic neutrino background” from the early universe. Neutrinos made up a much larger part of the early universe than they do today.
Microwave light seen by WMAP from when the universe was only 380,000 years old, shows that, at the time, neutrinos made up 10% of the universe, atoms 12%, dark matter 63%, photons 15%, and dark energy was negligible. In contrast, estimates from WMAP data show the current universe consists of 4.6% percent atoms, 23% dark matter, 72% dark energy and less than 1 percent neutrinos.
Cosmic neutrinos existed in such huge numbers they affected the universe’s early development. That, in turn, influenced the microwaves that WMAP observes. WMAP data suggest, with greater than 99.5% confidence, the existence of the cosmic neutrino background - the first time this evidence has been gleaned from the cosmic microwaves.
Much of what WMAP reveals about the universe is because of the patterns in its sky maps. The patterns arise from sound waves in the early universe. As with the sound from a plucked guitar string, there is a primary note and a series of harmonics, or overtones. The third overtone, now clearly captured by WMAP, helps to provide the evidence for the neutrinos.
The hot and dense young universe was a nuclear reactor that produced helium. Theories based on the amount of helium seen today predict a sea of neutrinos should have been present when helium was made. The new WMAP data agree with that prediction, along with precise measurements of neutrino properties made by Earth-bound particle colliders.
Another breakthrough derived from WMAP data is clear evidence the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog. The data provide crucial new insights into the end of the “dark ages,” when the first generation of stars began to shine. The glow from these stars created a thin fog of electrons in the surrounding gas that scatters microwaves, in much the same way fog scatters the beams from a car’s headlights.
“We now have evidence that the creation of this fog was a drawn-out process, starting when the universe was about 400 million years old and lasting for half a billion years,” said WMAP team member Joanna Dunkley of the University of Oxford in the U.K. and Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. “These measurements are currently possible only with WMAP.”
A third major finding arising from the new WMAP data places tight constraints on the astonishing burst of growth in the first trillionth of a second of the universe, called “inflation”, when ripples in the very fabric of space may have been created. Some versions of the inflation theory now are eliminated. Others have picked up new support.
[Religionists, take note, when scientists get new evidence that shows their work to be in error, they toss that work and go in a new direction!}
“The new WMAP data rule out many mainstream ideas that seek to describe the growth burst in the early universe,” said WMAP principal investigator, Charles Bennett, of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. “It is astonishing that bold predictions of events in the first moments of the universe now can be confronted with solid measurements.”
(snip)
Prior to the release of the new five-year data, WMAP already had made a pair of landmark finds. In 2003, the probe’s determination that there is a large percentage of dark energy in the universe erased remaining doubts about dark energy’s very existence. That same year, WMAP also pinpointed the 13.7 billion year age of the universe.
For more info see here.
Hat tip to quantum flux for bringing this to my attention!
11 April 2008, on 1:10 pm
Karen:
I can’t dig it out right now (one book of about 400 that I packed) but I have a book “Alpha to Omega” (if memory serves) that examines the various theories about the origins and the eventual demise of the universe. The author examines numerous competing theories and points out where various changes have been made when new data supports them.
The Bubble, not so much.
11 April 2008, on 1:28 pm
This must’ve been what it was like to live in the early 20th century when it seemed like every week there was a new revolutionary breakthrough.
I can’t wait to see what we do/find next.
11 April 2008, on 2:38 pm
AUM
“I can’t wait to see what we do/find next.”
Well, then you might like the post I’ve been sitting on and procrastinating about doing-but when I saw this I thought this should come first.
11 April 2008, on 3:00 pm
Well thank goodness, what would we do without WMAP?
11 April 2008, on 3:31 pm
Thanks, Karen, for such a “heads-up” Post.
]
Tangentially…
Something that occurs to me very often in today’s ongoing “religious/cosmology” wars, is the utter forgetting by the masses of delusionals of just HOW recent is mankind’s knowledge of ANYTHING of substance about the greater Universe; let alone the local ‘mundane’ environs.
It seems to me, that in particular, many young people, especially, who never lived in a time without all the electrical related “toys” like TVs, CDs, ipods, and of course computers, often forget just HOW recent is our MODERN Scientific Era. We’ve only really scratched the surface, practically speaking, in the last Century or so, regarding things like the subject of this Post.
More specifically…it’s been accelerating…’snow balling’…since the use of the Hubble telescope, etc.
Remember…there was hardly any real, practical, modern medicine until late in the 1800s..and like…no aspirin ’til…1853?
I’m 68, and my dad was born in 1905…a time when electricity was not even close to being universally available; and there were almost no suitable roads for the then brand new…automobile.
[Road apples were still quite common
Radio (anyone remember crystal sets?) was in its infancy; no widespread air conditioning until the 1950s…stereo also came in then, when I was teenager…yada, yada!
Sooooo…I always say (in my mind, mostly) to the revisionist type religious people who always thank the “Lawd” for this and that; You know: “Thank Gawd for ________!”…or…
more specifically…”Thank Gawd for Science!”
I say to them:
“BULLSHIT!”
All these wonders of Modern Science came from an extremely long trail of brave, intelligent, hard-working, critical thinking mavericks; who were almost universally persecuted by the totally delusional religious powers. In other words, thanks to our fellow HUMANS for all our modern conveniences and…any and all theoretical knowledge of the Universe and its…YES…
EVOLUTION!
I also add something like:
“IF Science were, indeed, a “gift” from some Deity…it sure took “Him” (the Almighty Bastard) a Hell-of-a-long time to grant us poor groveling slob humans some modicum of relief from all the wonderful “gifted” terrors existent on this ultra-primitive planet!”
Yeah…”Thanks alot…Asshole!”
Ummmm…Should I rest my case?
11 April 2008, on 3:59 pm
Good job Karen.
I love this stuff. I think it really is just a matter of time before the religious world finds itself out of support for their drivel. They can’t sustain anything but more of the same mumbo jumbo that they have been serving for the past few millenia.
Science moves on by consensus and continues to provide us with an ever expanding array of treats.
11 April 2008, on 5:00 pm
Great post, Karen. This stuff fascinates me!
” when scientists get new evidence that shows their work to be in error, they toss that work and go in a new direction!”
This is part of a conversation I was having with my youngest brother today who believes there is some kind of god but doesn’t accept all the Jesus horror story. We were talking about this “evidence” for supernatural baloney…he thinks there is “plenty of evidence” for the supernatural, including ghosts and he also said that science and the theories are like a religion because they are only beliefs. I disagreed and said that no, science is open to new evidence and is not afraid to admit they are wrong and change their “theories” in accordance to new findings. Religion won’t do that. I am yet waiting his reply to that one. He probably has to think on it.
I am glad though that he is one of the believers in my family who will listen to what I have to say and isn’t afraid to think about it.
11 April 2008, on 8:38 pm
Stardust:
I think when we argue with those who think science is a belief system and we say that science is willing to accept new data and change its thinking that they are going (in their heads) “Yeah, so, we always change the story around to what we think it should be, too.” I think that they really don’t know the difference between critical thinking and self-delusion.
11 April 2008, on 9:50 pm
Hmm, let’s see… Evidence-based science: 5,567,986,000 points
Creationism/ Intelligent DUHsign: 0 points
Ooo, better luck next time, reality deniers. But don’t worry, you still have plenty of time to come up with a way that your cute little fairy stories can be applied to finding out about the universe through testable, empirical, falsifiable methodologies. Then maybe you can start doing real, authentic research and contributing to the body of scientific knowledge in a meaningful way, instead of throwing tantrums and flinging metaphorical crap around like the apes you are. I think it’s time to EVOLVE.
Science, bitchez! It WORKS!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
12 April 2008, on 12:41 am
“That same year, WMAP also pinpointed the 13.7 billion year age of the universe.”
WTF tha’st shit I thouht th univurse was only 6000 years old (see the Bibel–duh!)WTF And whats a “bilion”? That probaly just soem number that science peple made up to lure us to the sinful tit of Stan and then we die in hell. you guys love Satan and want his tit
eat shit your stupid!
13 April 2008, on 9:26 am
Stardust, at least you can have somewhat of a discussion with your brother. My brother and I have to agree to disagree. I’m thankful we can do that and still love one another. If not, we’d be at each other’s throats.
14 April 2008, on 12:06 am
cry4turtles, Yes, it is a good thing I can talk to my youngest brother. My other brother seems indifferent also, but just doesn’t discuss it at all. But my fundie sister…no way. We used to be so close till a few years ago when her daughter married that crazy fundie and started controlling her and then my sister got involved and started going to church and I think it is because if she didn’t they wouldn’t let her see the grandkids…then they moved to Alaska anyway, but then she is still stuck in “her faith” so far that things cannot be the same between us because it makes her sad I am “going to hell”. Religion is one thing that most people can just live and let live, but not when it is a fundamentalist! They see everything in black and white.