BABY PICTURE OF UNIVERSE REVEALS ORIGINS
I learned the following information from an article by Robert Roy Britt, a Senior Science Writer for the website of Space. This article was written on February 11, 2003, the day that astronomers announced hugely important discoveries revealing the age and properties of the universe as well as when the first stars were born. These discoveries were based on the development of a map of the universe that was created measuring radiation emitted before there were any stars. According to Britt, the discoveries provide “the strongest support to date for the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe and a sub-notion within that theory that asserts that “hyperinflation” ruled during the first seconds.” The discoveries also proved astronomers’ suppositions of the age of the universe and the state of the universe at the time when the first stars were born.
The image created shows the universe’s radiation properties about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Specifically, it shows the cosmic microwave background. The data was projected to learn what the universe would have looked like at a later point in time, revealing that star formation was possible 200 million years after the Big Bang. The universe was revealed to be approximately 13.7 billion years old. The universe at the time represented by the image was composed of 4% matter in the form of atoms, 23% dark matter and 73% dark energy. Dark energy causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate at an ever-faster pace. Another interesting aspect confirmed is that the geometry of the universe is flat. This means that parallel lines never meet, even at the ends of the universe.