Baby Universe

Photo courtesy of NASA/WMAP Science Team Artist's rendition of the WMAP spacecraft.

This recent data is groundbreaking since it is the first evidence to support the theory of inflation, first proposed 25 years ago. The theory states that in the instants after the Big Bang, the universe expanded at an incredible rate. This rapid expansion, which is thought to have caused the volume of the universe to expand from just a few centimetres to about 18 billion light years in a fleeting moment, left its mark as rips or tears, called quantum fluctuations, in the very early universe. These were thought to have been amplified in the CMB radiation, and in the images from the WMAP satellite, scientists were able to see evidence of this as variations in brightness.

In addition to supporting the inflation theory, the new WMAP data also supports theories of what happened to matter and energy in the 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang. Fluctuations in density seen in the images are considered to be a sort of template for star and galaxy formation and life. They reveal that only 4% of our universe is made up of atoms, whereas 74% is a mysterious dark energy and 22% is unidentified dark matter. Dark energy is thought to be what is causing our universe to continue to expand, albeit much more slowly than during the moments of inflation.

Photo courtesy of NASA/WMAP Science Team Universe Timeline: This image shows that the expansion of the universe has been quite gradual after the initial period of inflation.

Obtaining data that supports cosmological theories is a big step forward in truly understanding the universe. Since the accidental discovery of CMB radiation in 1978, researchers have been slowly filling in the picture of how the universe was formed. As WMAP scientist David Spergel says: "When I started in this field we had lots of competing ideas about what was going on, we didn't know what the shape of the universe was, we didn't understand where galaxies come from, and now all the pieces seem to fit, and we seem to have a coherent model that ties with what we see in the early universe".

For more info, visit:

WMAP Press Release
http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_or/PressRelease_03_06.html

WMAP reveals infant universe
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4051

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