Science Blogging reports:
This week, NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) showed off three key findings contained in five years of data:
(1)New evidence that a sea of cosmic neutrinos permeates the universe
(2) Clear evidence the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog
(3)Tight new constraints on the burst of expansion in the universe's first trillionth of a second
I plan to keep an eye on number 3. Some very interesting articles are sure to follow this blockbuster:
A third major finding arising from the new WMAP data places tight constraints on the astonishing burst of growth in the first trillionth of a second of the universe, called “inflation”, when ripples in the very fabric of space may have been created. Some versions of the inflation theory now are eliminated. Others have picked up new support.
"The new WMAP data rule out many mainstream ideas that seek to describe the growth burst in the early universe," said WMAP principal investigator, Charles Bennett, of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. "It is astonishing that bold predictions of events in the first moments of the universe now can be confronted with solid measurements."
#3 is indeed interesting.
Posted by: MC | March 10, 2008 at 02:17 AM