WMAP: New Satellite Data On Universe's First Trillionth Second

New Satellite Data On Universe's First Trillionth Second
http://www.physorg.com/news11837.html

WMAP has produced a new, more detailed picture of the infant universe.
Colors indicate "warmer" (red) and "cooler" (blue) spots. The white
bars show the "polarization" direction of the oldest light. This new
information helps to pinpoint when the first stars formed and provides
new clues about events that transpired in the first trillionth of a
second of the universe. ASA/WMAP Science Team

Scientists peering back to the oldest light in the universe have new
evidence to support the concept of inflation. The concept poses the
universe expanded many trillion times its size in less than a
trillionth of a second at the outset of the big bang.

This finding, made with NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
(WMAP), is based on three years of continuous observations of the
cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow light produced when
the universe was less than a million years old.

WMAP polarization data allow scientists to discriminate between
competing models of inflation for the first time. This is a milestone
in cosmology. "We can now distinguish between different versions of
what happened within the first trillionth of a second of the universe,"
said WMAP Principal Investigator Charles Bennett of the Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore. "The longer WMAP observes, the more it reveals
about how our universe grew from microscopic quantum fluctuations to
the vast expanses of stars and galaxies we see today."

Previous WMAP results focused on the temperature variations of this
light, which provided an accurate age of the universe and insights into
its geometry and composition. The new WMAP observations give not only a
more detailed temperature map, but also the first full-sky map of the
polarization of the CMB. This major breakthrough will enable scientists
to obtain much deeper insight into what happened within the first
trillionth of a second of the universe.

See: http://www.physorg.com/news11837.html
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