OFF:UNIVERSE CREATION: "Scientists find big bang evidence" (AP)

[Arin Komins]

...and the DASI home page is at:

http://astro.uchicago.edu/dasi/

Arin


On Mon, 30 Apr 2001 DASLUD at AOL.COM wrote:

:Subject: OFF:UNIVERSE CREATION: "Scientists find big bang evidence"  (AP)
:
:Scientists Find Big Bang Evidence
:
:.c The Associated Press
:
:
:WASHINGTON (AP) - Key elements of theories about how the universe expanded
:and developed after the Big Bang have been confirmed by data from high-flying
:balloons and from instruments operating in Antarctica, scientists say.
:
:The instruments, looking deep into the universe, were able to detect minute
:ripples and distortions in energy patterns within the cosmic microwave
:background, a faint glow left over from the immense heat of the Big Bang.
:
:Readings from the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer at the Center for
:Astrophysical Research in Antarctica show tiny distortions in the
:distribution of matter and variations in temperature just moments after the
:Big Bang.
:
:A concept, called the inflation theory, holds that these irregularities,
:enlarging over time, led to the formation of all the big structures in the
:universe - galaxies, stars and planets.
:
:The new findings, said John Carlstrom, an astronomy professor at the
:University of Chicago and head of the DASI team, lend strong support to the
:inflation theory.
:
:``It's always been theoretically compelling,'' said Carlstrom. ``Now it's on
:very solid experimental ground.''
:
:Carlstrom and his team presented the research Sunday at the spring meeting of
:the American Physical Society.
:
:The DASI experiment could detect ripples of temperature differences at a time
:when the universe was about 400,000 years old. The universe is thought to be
:about 14 billion years old. The inflation theory predicts that the
:temperature differences would show up as three peaks that become
:progressively fainter with time. Carlstrom said DASI detected two peaks and
:suggestions of a third.
:
:Researchers believe the data also support the idea that ordinary matter, of
:which planets, stars and even people are made, accounts for only about 4.5
:percent of the universe's total mass. The rest of the energy in the universe
:is attributed to cold dark matter, which cannot be easily detected, and to a
:force called ``dark energy,'' which is thought to be causing galaxies to
:separate at a faster and faster rate.
:
:Other experimenters, using instruments boosted up to 120,000 feet by balloons
:detected variations to within 100 millionths of a degree in the cosmic
:microwave background radiation temperature.
:
:The data, from a project called Balloon Observations of Millimetric
:Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics, were gathered in 1998. The data
:provide more detail for cosmic microwave background temperature data first
:obtained by a satellite in 1991.
:
:Data from the experiments support the notion that the universe is flat and
:not curved, an idea that would affect the path taken by light streaking
:across time and space.
:
:AP-NY-04-30-01 1324EDT
:

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Arin Komins                                   akomins at uchicago.edu
Web Systems Administrator
University of Chicago/NSIT                      tel: (773)834-4087
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