On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, NASA released a report that provided the most detailed map yet of the nascent universe. It contained such astonishing detail that it was automatically considered one of the most important scientific works of recent years. The researchers used Wilkinson’s WMAP Microwave Anisotropic Probe during an extensive 12-month observation of the entire sky. The cosmic portrait captured the aftermath of the big bang, the so-called cosmic microwave background.
One of the biggest surprises revealed by the probe’s data involved the first generation of stars that shone in the universe just 200 million years after the Big Bang. That is, much earlier than many scientists had assumed until then. In addition, the new portrait then accurately determined the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years (with a remarkably small one percent error).
Awww…baby photos!#OTD in 2003, NASA released an image of the infant universe! The portrait, captured over the course of a 12-month observation by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), allowed scientists to describe the universe with unprecedented accuracy. pic.twitter.com/hKU365TycL
— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) February 11, 2022
The WMAP probe team found that the theory of the big bang and the expansion of the universe still holds true. He also added details about the composition of the universe, which is made up of 4 percent atoms that make up ordinary matter, 23 percent an unexplored type of dark matter, and 73 percent mysterious dark energy. According to NASA’s director of astronomy and physics, Anne Kinney, these numbers represented a milestone in our view of our universe, and she called the report a real turning point in cosmology.
The light we observe as the cosmic microwave background has traveled to us for more than 13 billion years. In this light are infinitesimal figures that mark the seeds of what later grew into galaxy clusters and the vast structure all around us. The patterns were frozen in place just 380,000 years after the big bang, another number refined by this observation. And just for the record, the figures on the map represent tiny temperature differences in the extraordinarily evenly scattered microwave light that surrounds the universe, which now averages a chilly 2.73 degrees above absolute zero.
Thanks to this, NASA was able to come up with its exact estimate of the age of the universe, and it is no longer very likely that this number will change in the future.
Source: NASA
