New images from Atacama cosmological telescope (ACT) Reveals the universe about 380,000 years ago.
Images of CMB radiation from the Atacama cosmological telescope. Orange and blue represent more or less strong radiation. Image credit: ACT collaboration.
Photos of what is called a new ACT Cosmic microwave background (CMB) Adds high resolution to people observed over 10 years ago by ESA’s Planck space-based telescope.
“We’re looking at the first steps to creating early stars and galaxies,” said ACT director Professor Suzanne Staggs of Princeton University.
“And we are not only looking at light and darkness, but also seeing polarization of light in high resolution. That’s a critical standout act from Planck and other early telescopes.”
Dr. Sigurd Nees, a researcher at the University of Oslo, said:
“This means that faint polarized signals will be visible directly.”
Polarized images reveal detailed movements of hydrogen and helium gas in space infants.
“We previously could see where things were, and now we’re seeing how they’re moving,” Professor Staggs said.
“Like tides we use to infer the existence of the moon, movements tracked by polarization of light tell us how strong the pull of gravity is in different parts of space.”
“The new results confirmed a simple model of the universe and eliminated most of the competing alternatives.”
In the first hundreds of thousands of years after the Big Bang, the primitive plasma that filled the universe was extremely hot, unable to propagate freely, effectively making the universe opaque.
The CMB represents the first stage in the history of the universe that we can see. It’s effectively a picture of a baby in the universe.
The new ACT images provide a very clear view of the very subtle variations in the density and velocity of gases that fill the young universe.
“There are other modern telescopes that measure polarization with low noise, but none covers more of the sky than the act,” Dr. Naes said.
“What appears to be a blurry cloud of light intensity is a region of low density in the oceans of hydrogen and helium, which are hills and valleys that span millions of light years.”
“For the next millions to billions of years, gravity pulled inwards a dense area of gas to build stars and galaxies.”
These detailed images of the newborn universe help scientists answer long-standing questions about the origins of the universe.
“Looking back at times when things were much simpler, we can piece together the stories of how our universe evolved into today’s rich and complex places,” says Professor Jo Dunkley, Princeton University professor and leader in ACT analysis.
“We have more accurately measured that the observable universe extends almost 50 billion light years in every direction from us and contains as much mass as 1,900 “Zetta Sands,” or about 2 trillion suns,” added Professor Herminia Calabrese of Cardiff University.
“Of these 1,900 Zettas – suns, the mass of normal material – the kinds we can see – constitute only 100.”
“A further 500 mass Zettasun is a mysterious dark matter, with 1,300 being the dominant vacuum energy (also known as dark energy) of empty space.”
Small neutrino particles constitute the mass of the largest four Zettasuns. Of the usual substances, three-quarters of their mass are hydrogen and a quarter helium.
“Almost all helium in the universe was produced in the first three minutes of the universe,” says Dr. Tiboleis, a researcher at the University of Parisacley and CNRS.
“The new measurements of its abundance are in great agreement with theoretical models and galaxy observations.”
“The elements we humans are made up of – mostly carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, iron, and even gold traces are formed of stars, sprinkled on top of this universe’s stew.”
New measurements of ACT also refine estimates of the age of the universe and today’s growth rate.
The difference in matter in the early universe sent sound waves through space, like ripples spreading across the pond ring.
“The young universe would have had to expand more quickly to reach its current size. The images we measure look like they’re approaching us,” said Professor Mark Devlin, assistant director of the University of Pennsylvania.
“In that case, the apparent extent of ripples in the image will be as large as the ruler held close to your face appears to be larger than what is held at arm length.”
“New data confirms that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and uncertainty is only 0.1%.”
In recent years, cosmologists have opposed the Hubble constant, where today’s space is expanding.
Measurements derived from the CMB consistently show an expansion velocity of 67-68 km per second per megapulsec, whereas measurements derived from nearby galaxy movements show a Hubble constant of 73-74 km per second per megapulsec.
Using the newly released data, the ACT team measured the Hubble constant with improved accuracy.
Their measurements are consistent with previous CMB-derived estimates.
“We have made this whole new sky measurement, giving an independent check of the cosmological model, showing that the results will continue,” says Dr. Adriaan Duivenvoorden, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics.
The main goal of this work was to investigate alternative models of the universe that explain differences.
“We’ve seen a lot of experience in the world,” said Dr. Colin Hill, a researcher at Columbia University.
“Alternatives include changing the behavior of neutrinos and invisible dark matter, adding periods of accelerated expansion in the early universe, or changing the fundamental constants of nature.”
“We used CMB as a detector for new particles or fields in the early universe, exploring previously unknown topography,” Dr. Hill said.
“The ACT data does not provide evidence of such a new signal. The new results have made the standard model of cosmology pass highly accurate tests.”
“It was a bit surprising to us that we couldn’t even find partial evidence to support higher values,” Professor Staggs said.
“There were some areas where I thought I might see evidence of an explanation for tension, and they weren’t there in the data.”
Source: www.sci.news
Error: unable to get links from server. Please make sure that your site supports either file_get_contents() or the cURL library.