Ripples in Neutrino Background May Be Proof of Big Bang |
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Written by spacetravel.org
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Friday, 01 July 2005 21:59 |
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Astrophysicists Robert Trotta of the University of Oxford and Alessandro Melchiorri of the University of Rome in Italy have found indirect hints of ripples in the Universes neutrino background, which could be evidence of the Big Bang. According to Big Bang theory, about a second after the Big Bang, the Universe became transparent to the neutrinos that had previously been produced in large quantities. These neutrinos then streamed freely through space, forming a neutrino background. The lumpy matter in the Big Bangs fireball would have created variations in density throughout the Universe, which would have created ripples in this background.
Oxford and Melchiorri simulated the effect these ripples would have had on the distribution of galaxies today, and on the microwave background radiation left over from about 300,000 years after the Big Bang. Their results agreed closely with the distribution of galaxies mapped by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the actual microwave background measured by NASAs WMAP satellite.
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