Most detailed map of Big Bang radiation unveiled

US: A new, detailed map of the most ancient light in the cosmos has revealed our Universe to be about 80 million years older than thought, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Thursday.

The 50-million pixel, all-sky snapshot of radiation left over from the Big Bang was compiled from data gathered by ESA's Planck satellite, launched four years ago.

“This is a giant leap in our understanding of the origins of the Universe,” the agency's director general Jean-Jacques Dordain told a press conference to unveil the data in Paris. “This image is the closest one yet of the Big Bang. You are looking 13.8 billion years ago.”

The oval-shaped map dotted with pixels in blue and brown representing small fluctuations in the temperature of the radiation, adds an edge of precision to many existing cosmological theories -- but may shed doubt on others.It depicts Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) or relic radiation at a point 380,000 years after the Big Bang, as the newly-formed Universe started cooling down.

There were no stars or galaxies then. The data shows the Universe to be expanding at a slower rate than previously thought, which required adjusting its age to 13.82 billion years.

HINDUSTAN TIMES