X-Nico

unusual facts about cosmic microwave background



Conformal cyclic cosmology

In 2010, Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan published a preprint of a paper claiming that observations of the cosmic microwave background made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the BOOMERanG experiment showed concentric anomalies which were consistent with the CCC hypothesis, with a low probability of the null hypothesis that the observations in question were caused by chance.

Homology sphere

In 2003, lack of structure on the largest scales (above 60 degrees) in the cosmic microwave background as observed for one year by the WMAP spacecraft led to the suggestion, by Jean-Pierre Luminet of the Observatoire de Paris and colleagues, that the shape of the Universe is a Poincaré sphere.

Particle physics in cosmology

Cosmological observations of phenomena such as the cosmic microwave background and the cosmic abundance of elements, together with the predictions of the Standard Model of particle physics, place constraints on the conditions of the early universe.

Rainer Weiss

He made pioneering measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and then was co-founder and an intellectual leader of the NASA COBE (microwave background) satellite.

Yun Wang

Currently Professor in the University of Oklahoma's Department of Physics and Astronomy, she has published over 90 refereed papers, most recently specializing on probing the dark energy in the Universe, with particular attention to the use of supernovae and galaxy redshift surveys as cosmological probes, studies of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy, and the measurement of cosmological parameters.


see also