The double-edged sword of the best map of the early universe ever for cosmologists

The latest and greatest maps of the early universe, five times more detailed than anything before, are accurately supported by the main models of the universe, but are also a double-edged sword, as new data does not provide clues to solve some of the greatest mysteries of cosmology.

The map shows the universe’s cosmic microwave background (CMB). This is a faint remaining radiation from the early stages of the universe. It began as the earliest light just 380,000 years after the Big Bang, but the expansion of the universe over billions of years has shifted frequency from the visible spectrum to microwaves.

Now, new data from Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) gave us a clearer image of the CMB only from half of the sky that can be imaged from the Chilean observatory location.

Joe Dunkley At Princeton University, which worked on the project, the data says it has more vigorously and accurately reduced the composition of the universe, its size, age, and magnification rate. But the truly important discovery was that nothing contradicts the current major model of the universe. Lambda-CDM.

Previous data set the universe’s age at 13.8 billion years old, and the velocity at which it is expanding – known as the Hubble constant – is 67-68 km per 67-68 km per megapulsek distance from Earth. The ACT data essentially confirms this, but increases accuracy and confidence in those findings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggtt9qhn7os

CMB is first mapped by NASA’s Space Background Explorer (COBE) in the 1980s and 90s, then by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropic Probe (WMAP) in the 2000s, and then from the European Space Agency’s Planck Spacecraft to provide early knowledge from 2009 to 2013. universe.

One of the restrictions on the act is that unlike these previous space-based missions, it is a ground-based telescope. Therefore, it is limited to half of the sky. Nevertheless, the action not only provides better resolution and sensitivity than these previous maps, but also measures the direction in which the polarization or light waves of CMB are oscillated, revealing some information about how CMB light evolved over time.

“With a closer look at the polarization of the CMB, we could have seen something different. We could have seen the destruction of standard space models,” says Dunkley. “Every time you look at the universe differently, you can’t be sure the original model is still working. You were ready to see something coming out of that model.

This may be a relief for anyone working on Lambda-CDM, but it was not welcome news for all scientists. Colinhill At Columbia University in New York, he says he wanted to see some evidence in data on a phenomenon that has not yet been recognized (probably a new type of energy or particle). This helps explain the so-called Hubble tension.

“We’ve all been blown away by how consistent we are. [the ACT data] It’s really on the standard model. We all produce models from different aspects, looking for places where they break and where nature can give us something to sink our teeth. And so far, nature hasn’t created that crack,” says Hill.

He says that the most viable theory for the contradiction of Hubble tension requires phenomena that simply do not appear in the ACT data we currently have. This brings the scientist back to seek another explanation. “The new measurements will make theorists, including me, even closer restraint jackets,” says Hill. “That deepens the mystery.”

ACT collected data that constituted this new map between 2017 and 2022, but is now shut down. Dunkley says that while a new Chilean telescope will start work later this year, we are unlikely to get a higher resolution map for a few years. As for the other half of the sky, only two locations on Earth could potentially host a new telescope with results: Greenland and Tibet. Dunkley says that unfortunately Greenland still doesn’t have the infrastructure needed for such a project, and Tibet is politically sensitive.

Jens Chluba At the University of Manchester in the UK, scientists on the project are already working with data, but say the open release of ACT maps will cause a surge in activity.