The Oldest Light in the Universe

"Mark Earnest" wrote in message
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"Hagar" wrote in message
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"Mark Earnest" wrote in message
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The Oldest Light in the Universe

by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and ScienceIQ.com

"A NASA satellite has captured the sharpest-ever picture of the
afterglow of the big bang. The image contains such stunning detail
that
it may be one of the most important scientific results of recent
years.
Scientists used NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) to
capture the new cosmic portrait, which reveals the afterglow of the
big
bang, a.k.a. the cosmic microwave background. One of the biggest
surprises revealed in the data is the first generation of stars to
shine in the universe first ignited only 200 million years after the
big bang, much earlier than many scientists had expected. In addition,
the new portrait precisely pegs the age of the universe at 13.7
billion
years, with a remarkably small one percent margin of error. The WMAP
team found that the big bang and Inflation theories continue to ring
true."

http://www.physlink.com/


So now, with the Hubbell, we can almost see the Big Bang?
So what exactly is stopping us, why can't we in fact see it?
If we could see it, it sure would solve a lot of arguments,
and answer a lot of questions.

Maybe we have to be at just the right distance from where the Big Bang
happened, so that the light can have all of those billions of years to
get to us?

Mark

I am still confused about seeing these images from the past. Take the
BB,
for instance. It's image has been traveling radially at the speed of
light ever since it happened. Shortly after the BB, physical matter
started to slow down and began to clump together, thus further slowing
down. Along the way, about 8 billion years later, Earth formed. By my
estimation, the image of the BB has traveled way beyond the Earth, the
edge of the visible Universe, even and is lost forever, at least as a
pictorial visual.

Considering this, something is very wrong here. If we are almost seeing
the
Big Bang, then there should be very little universe on the opposite side
of
us from the direction of those ancient galaxies.

Why would you say that. If the BB is the point and has been expanding in all
directions ever since, there should be just as much universe on the opposite
side as we observe here.


This is because the universe should end wherever the Big Bang is
perceived,
as the perception of the Big Bang has been traveling as fast as light can
the whole while.

Unless of course, the universe is expanding faster than the "speed limit"
of 186,000 miles per second!

Some say it is. The red shift on some of the farthest galaxies we can see,
tend to indicate they are going faster than the speed of light.




It is
almost as if someone shoots a pistol, then taking off running in the
same
direction and claiming to catch the bullet just before it hits the
ground.

As far as the background emissions, I think that the Universe wants to
be
at the absolute Zero, but the combined radiation of the billions of
galaxies is enough to keep the ambient galactic temperature at about 3.5
or so degrees above zero. As they are receding from each other, that is
very slowly dropping towards zero, and by the time the last stars blip
out
into oblivion, everything will stop.