I'm starting a cosmology thread since there's so much new information coming out, and well, I'm interested in it. :D

From today's NY Times (front page yet!)

[i]For Astronomers, Big Bang Confirmation[/i]

[i]By DENNIS OVERBYE
The most detailed and precise map yet produced of the universe just after its birth confirms the Big Bang theory in triumphant detail and opens new chapters in the early history of the cosmos, astronomers said yesterday.
It reveals the emergence of the first stars in the cosmos, only 200 million years after the Big Bang, some half a billion years earlier than theorists had thought, and gives a first tantalizing hint at the physics of the "dynamite" behind the Big Bang.[/i]

[i]Astronomers said the map results lent impressive support to the strange picture that has emerged recently: the universe is expanding at an ever-faster rate, pushed apart by a mysterious "dark energy."
By comparing their data with other astronomical observations, the astronomers have also made far more precise calculations of the basic parameters that characterize the universe, including its age, geometry, composition and weight.[/i]

[i]In a nutshell, the universe is 13.7 billion years old, plus or minus one percent; a recent previous estimate had a margin of error three times as much. By weight it is 4 percent atoms, 23 percent dark matter - presumably undiscovered elementary particles left over from the Big Bang - and 73 percent dark energy. And it is geometrically "flat," meaning that parallel lines will not meet over cosmic scales.
The result, the astronomers said, is a seamless and consistent history of the universe, from its first few seconds, when it was a sizzling soup of particles and energy, to the modern day and a sky beribboned with chains of pearly galaxies inhabited by at least one race of puzzled and ambitious bipeds.[/i]

[i]The map, compiled by a satellite called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, shows the slight temperature variations in a haze of radio microwaves believed to be the remains of the fires of the Big Bang. Cosmologists said the map would serve as the basis for studying the universe for the rest of the decade...[/i]

[i]...The task now...is to understand those motley elements, the dark stuff that apparently makes up 96 percent of everything, and what happened in the Big Bang that gave birth to it all.[/i]

[i]Cosmologists do not know what dark energy is. One leading candidate is a repulsive force called the cosmological constant, which Einstein created as a fudge factor to keep the universe from collapsing in his equations, and later disavowed. But some theories of modern physics postulate mysterious force fields called quintessence as the dark energy. While the new analysis has not solved the problem, Dr. Spergel said its data seemed to favor Einstein's fudge factor.[/i]

There's a lot more interesting stuff, here's the link to the article:
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/science/12COSM.html[/url]

And here's a link to the graphics at the WMAP site:
[url]http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/.[/url]

I love the terminology that these scientists use: dark energy, dark matter, quintessence....pure poetry :mrgreen: How frustrating that we're still so earthbound!

elmey

(I'm not sure why this post ended up being so wide--have no clue what to do about it, sorry!)
__________________________