In the spirit of the "old" days of Usenet, I've given this message a
title much like what you might have seen back in the 80's. :-)

Actually this is about the discovery announced on Monday that the BICEP2
experiment has detected the "fingerprints of inflation - the exponential
expansion [super-luminal i.e. c] that put the "bang" in the Big Bang"
according to an article published Monday by Sky & Telescope.

/quote
The discovery of primordial B-modes [polarization patterns observed in
the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation] comes from the second round
of Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP)
experiment. It’s among one of several projects observing the CMB in
what’s called the Southern Hole, a patch of sky visible from Antarctica
that’s a direct sightline out of our galaxy and into the cosmic depths.

The BICEP2 scope has an aperture of less than 30 centimeters (12
inches), but it doesn’t need to be big. Cooled to 4 kelvin, it gazes at
a 20° patch of sky 24/7, detecting the CMB’s faint microwaves — and,
crucially, how they’re polarized.
/end-quote

This is about as big a deal in astronomy/astrophysics as you will likely
see for this decade anyway. According to the S&T article some further
tidbits of this discovery a

/quote
1. The first hard evidence that gravity is quantized, or comes in
discrete packets as light does. The gravitation waves that produced the
B-modes were born as quantum fluctuations in gravity itself...

2. This is the first detection of gravitation waves' action on matter
other than their source...

3. The first detection of Hawking radiation...
/end-quote

Full article can be found he
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/...250681381.html

More background details can be found he
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/...250522521.html

Steve Willner, still partying or how's the hangover? ;-)

Dave