CMB – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-experimental-cosmologist-hunting-for-the-first-sunrise-20230920/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-experimental-cosmologist-hunting-for-the-first-sunrise-20230920/#respond Wed, 20 Sep 2023 15:15:50 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=130298 The post The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Cynthia Chiang always wanted to work with her hands. Although it may sound counterintuitive, it’s what led her to the fairly abstract field of observational cosmology: studying the cosmos’s origin and development by gathering data on the universe’s early years. Her trip into this work began when she was applying to graduate school and she checked out a lab in a basement at the California Institute...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-experimental-cosmologist-hunting-for-the-first-sunrise-20230920/feed/ 0 Shadows in the Big Bang Afterglow Reveal Invisible Cosmic Structures https://www.quantamagazine.org/shadows-in-the-big-bang-afterglow-reveal-invisible-cosmic-structures-20230313/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/shadows-in-the-big-bang-afterglow-reveal-invisible-cosmic-structures-20230313/#respond Mon, 13 Mar 2023 13:51:05 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=123813 The post Shadows in the Big Bang Afterglow Reveal Invisible Cosmic Structures first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Nearly 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the primordial plasma of the infant universe cooled enough for the first atoms to coalesce, making space for the embedded radiation to soar free. That light — the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — continues to stream through the sky in all directions, broadcasting a snapshot of the early universe that’s picked up by dedicated telescopes and even revealed...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/shadows-in-the-big-bang-afterglow-reveal-invisible-cosmic-structures-20230313/feed/ 0 Laws of Logic Lead to New Restrictions on the Big Bang https://www.quantamagazine.org/cosmologists-close-in-on-logical-laws-for-the-big-bang-20211110/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/cosmologists-close-in-on-logical-laws-for-the-big-bang-20211110/#respond Wed, 10 Nov 2021 15:05:15 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=110164 The post Laws of Logic Lead to New Restrictions on the Big Bang first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> For over 20 years, physicists have had reason to feel envious of certain fictional fish: specifically, the fish inhabiting the fantastic space of M.C. Escher’s Circle Limit III woodcut, which shrink to points as they approach the circular boundary of their ocean world. If only our universe had the same warped shape, theorists lament, they might have a much easier time understanding it.

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/cosmologists-close-in-on-logical-laws-for-the-big-bang-20211110/feed/ 0 How the Cosmic Dark Ages Snuffed Out All Light https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-cosmic-dark-ages-snuffed-out-all-light-20200302/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-cosmic-dark-ages-snuffed-out-all-light-20200302/#respond Mon, 02 Mar 2020 16:48:44 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=81864 The post How the Cosmic Dark Ages Snuffed Out All Light first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Darkness isn’t always the absence of light. It can also be the inability of light to get very far. And just as the brightest headlight can be blocked by a thick fog, the first stars in the universe were shrouded by their immediate surroundings. Astronomers call this time period the cosmic dark ages, and they are slowly unraveling the mystery of how and when it ended. The obvious challenge is that...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-cosmic-dark-ages-snuffed-out-all-light-20200302/feed/ 0 How Ancient Light Reveals the Universe’s Contents https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-ancient-light-reveals-the-universes-contents-20200128/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-ancient-light-reveals-the-universes-contents-20200128/#respond Tue, 28 Jan 2020 15:30:27 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=80718 The post How Ancient Light Reveals the Universe’s Contents first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In early 2003, Chuck Bennett learned the precise contents of the cosmos. By then, most cosmologists had concluded that the universe contains much more than meets the eye. Observations of pinwheeling galaxies suggested that scaffolds of invisible matter held their stars together, while a repulsive form of energy drove galaxies apart. To learn more, Bennett and his Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy...

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