The accidental discovery
The universe's first light
Mapping the baby universe
Deciphering the cosmic recipe
YOUR GOAL
Master of The cosmic microwave background
artiteacher The accidental discovery
Cleaned up the static but it wouldn't go— (Oh-oh, that's the cosmic glow!)
artiteacher A few miles away, Princeton theorists had already predicted the exact cosmic glow the radio astronomers stumbled upon.
artiteacher The researchers spent months cleaning out nesting pigeons, thinking bird droppings were causing the strange static.
Pigeon poop panic: Scientists initially blamed pigeon droppings for the cosmic static that turned out to be the Big Bang's echo.
It is electromagnetic radiation remaining from the early stages of the universe in Big Bang cosmology. In 1964, physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected this signal using a New Jersey horn antenna.
Where was the giant horn antenna located that first detected the cosmic microwave background?
What did the Princeton physicist Robert Dicke say when he heard about the radio static?
What type of radiation is the cosmic microwave background primarily detected as today?
In what year did Penzias and Wilson win the Nobel Prize in Physics for their cosmic discovery?
In what year did Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally discover the cosmic microwave background?
What was the Holmdel horn antenna originally designed to do before it detected the cosmic microwave background?
Which university housed the theoretical physicists who explained what Penzias and Wilson had actually found?
What animal did Penzias and Wilson suspect was causing the interference in their antenna?