--------- #1305 - What Do the Cosmic Harmonics Tell Us?
- Up until the Universe was 370,000 years old the Big Bang plasma was too hot for neutral atoms to form. The plasma was full of charged free protons, and charged free electrons causing the photons not to be able to escape.
- After 370,000 years the expansion and cooling of the plasma was enough for neutral hydrogen to form. (See details in last paragraph) . The Universe became transparent to light. The light was very high energy Gamma Rays at the time, but, is today “ seen” as the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. This radiation started out at a temperature of 3,000 Kelvin. We “see” today at a temperature of 2.734 Kelvin. The temperature of the radiation has cooled by a factor of 1,000 as the Universe has expanded by a factor 1,000.
- The temperature of the background is 2.735 Kelvin which is nearly Absolute Zero and nearly homogeneous, but, not quite perfectly smooth at the very high resolution. At the highest resolution the temperature variations existed at 0.0005 Kelvin. Those “ hot spots” that started out due to quantum fluctuations have evolved into the stars and galaxies we see today.
- But, there may be even more to see in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. Hidden in the slight temperature variations may be primordial sound waves that began with ringing that was created 30,000 years after the Big Bang.
- The shockwave from the Big Bang released an acoustic wave trough the plasma. These acoustic waves should be like a string vibrating on a guitar. Standing waves would be created at fundamental frequencies and wavelengths. Harmonics of the fundamental frequencies would also be created. Sound waves in turn create regions of compression and rarefication. This, in turn, created regions of maximum and minimum densities that are frozen in the Cosmic Background.
- The hotter and coder regions are separated in the sky by about 1 arc degree or less. The difference in hot to cold is less than 30 parts per million. It takes very sensitive microwave detectors to record these small differences. The Planck spacecraft and Herschel far-infrared space telescope launched May 14, 2009 are designed to “see” these small temperature variations. The sound waves within these variations is expected to have a wavelength of 120 kilo parsecs.
- Other variations resulting from gravitational waves released during the period of Cosmic Inflation should detected as variations in the polarization of the photons. the Planck telescope has the “sun glasses” needed to detect this polarization.
- Planck and Herschel are following Earth 900,000 miles behind Earth’s orbit. the location in space is called the Lagrangian-2 point. At this point the gravity of the Earth and the Sun cancel each other out so the satellite can follow along without using much fuel. The satellites are also in Earth’s shadow which blocks most of the Sun’s radiation. this significantly improves the detectors signal-to-noise ratio, another big advantage.
- The detectors have to detect all the other radiation variations (noise) created by galaxies, other instruments, and even dust. This noise, once characterized is subtracted away to identify the desired signal in the noisy cosmic background.
- The Universe is a perfect Blackbody Radiation. As such, astronomers can predict the exact power spectrum as it varies with temperature. Comparing precise measurements with these theories in physics will tell as much about the creation of the Universe.
- What have the harmonic patterns told physicists? The Universe is 13,750,000,000 years old. The Universe is composed of 5% ordinary matter, 25% Dark Matter and 75% Dark Energy. The Universe is geometrically flat, that is, parallel lines remain parallel regardless of how far they are extended. The critical mass of the Universe is 10^-29 grams per cubic centimeter. Critical mass is just enough mass to stop the Universe from expanding due to the balance between collapsing force of gravity and the Universes’ expanding force.
- The Cosmic Radiation actually started 115,000 years after the Big Bang and ended 487,000 years after. The 380,000 years was the peak of recombination. The Cosmic Microwave Background actually covers the range 60 to 600 gigahertz, or, 0.5 to 0.05 centimeters wavelength. The energy level is 0.25 electron volts. The peak power of the blackbody curve occurs at 270 gigahertz. The first stars did not come along until 200,000,000 years after the Big Bang. Science plucks a string and a whole symphony is played.
An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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Review #823 Sound waves and the Cosmic Microwave Background
Review #757 Cosmic Background Radiation.
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707-536-3272, Thursday, October 6, 2011
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