Cosmic Background Explorer

Before this happened to a permutation, the universe would be opaque – the free electrons emitted light and would dispel it, just as water droplets scatter the sunlight in the clouds. But when free electrons are completely transformed into atoms, the universe is the hour is clear. The same photon, we can observe now, they glow – this is the relic izluchenie.Nobelevskaya award for NASA NASA conducted two studies of the CMB, making the images of the universe after 400 thousand years after its formation. The first of these studies have been conducted using the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE). In 1992, the COBE team announced the discovery of initially cold and hot spots in the cosmic radiation. These points can be attributed to the gravitational field of the early universe. They form a vast sectors of galaxies that stretch hundreds of millions of light years throughout the universe.

In 2006, this work has brought to John Matera and George Smoot – nasovskim scientists from the University of California – Nobel Prize in physics. The next study the CMB was named Wilkinson Microware Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The technical base has expanded significantly in comparison with the COBE team, and WMAP conducted a study of the entire sky, measuring the temperature difference between microwave radiation, which subtly spread throughout the universe. On the map sky hot regions are marked in red, cold – blue. Comparing these observations with theoretical models of the universe, scientists have concluded that the universe – "flat". That is, the geometry of space space corresponds to the Euclidean geometry (parallel lines do not intersect, the ratio of the circumference of the circle and its diameter corresponds to the number Pi, etc.).