Where is the cosmic microwave background?

“We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining- they just shine.” -Dwight L. Moody

The farther away in space we look, the farther back in time we’re seeing. Light arriving from a star ten light years away is ten years old; light that took a billion-year journey from a distant galaxy is a billion years old. If we look out today at the most distant light we can see, we discover that it originates from the Big Bang itself: the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB.

The timeline of our observable Universe's history. Image credit: NASA / WMAP science team. The timeline of our observable Universe's history. Image credit: NASA / WMAP science team.

But this doesn’t mean the light has never interacted with anything since the birth of the observable Universe. In fact, many arose from matter/antimatter annihilations, all of them have scattered off of charged particles, and the CMB photons we detect today were all released when the Universe was a few hundred thousand years old. Because of the way the Big Bang works, the particles are literally everywhere, all at once, including right here.

The cosmic microwave background appears very different to observers at different redshifts, because they're seeing it as it was earlier in time. Image credit: Earth: NASA/BlueEarth; Milky Way: ESO/S. Brunier; CMB: NASA/WMAP. The cosmic microwave background appears very different to observers at different redshifts, because they're seeing it as it was earlier in time. Image credit: Earth: NASA/BlueEarth; Milky Way: ESO/S. Brunier; CMB: NASA/WMAP.

Come get the full story on where the CMB actually is, and what it means when we state its age and distance!

More like this

It's all around you, it penetrates you and binds the galaxy together :D .. well... not so much the last part, maybe that's why we don't have Jedis

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 17 Mar 2017 #permalink

It's cold ex-breakfast cornflakes? That's about the only thing I can think of that is strong enough to bind the galaxy together....

Nah, I'm not worried. The dude just was choking on his breakfast, that's all.

Wow @#2 - good one!

Binds the galaxy together? If only you knew the power of the Dark Side! Dark Matter… It is the only way!

By Anonymous Coward (not verified) on 17 Mar 2017 #permalink

If you photograph a pot of boiling water with a regular camera you get a clear image of that pot, just like we can take a sharp image of the stars. Now if you photograph that same pot with a heat-camera you get a very different image with flows. The question now is how do you know that the light is old and from one specific point in time, and not some heat/light flowing around from more recent times even now. How are the two distinguishable from each other?

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 17 Mar 2017 #permalink

@ Paul

a simple answer is temperature. That "old" light is only several degrees K. And yes, it is a huge undertaking to filter light that you don't want and only measure the background.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 17 Mar 2017 #permalink

Look at the design docs of the WMAP probe and see how carefully it's designed to cool the sensor and stop it seeing anything warm.

And the reason why your IR photo is because it's in a conducting and convecting atmosphere. Empty space is not an atmosphere. It doesn't convect away heat to be spotted by the camera and blur the image.

Ok, there is no convection, but light and particles are curved all the time by magnetic fields, think of the magnetic field of Earth deflecting solar winds. If you count all what's being 'blown away' and deflected out off course you could get a noisy background blur of 'loose' photons unrelated to any specific place. Think of light bending around a corner generating a blurry floue image, due to diffraction. At some point you might get a ground layer of this kind of noise.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

But that isn't the case for your kettle, Paul.

You can't just go "Hey, look at an IR photo of a pot!" and use it to then "prove" that your conclusion is correct.

You have to show that the effect is equivalent and gives rise to the same or analogous results.

You have not.

Here's a recently relevant example, Paul.

If you were to be pushed at 1g forward (say, in a car), you would speed up. If you were pushed DOWN at 1g (say, by the gravitational attraction of the earth on your body), you would NOT speed up.

Why?

Because the analogy of "accelerating at 1g" does not apply due to non-analogous confounding factors.

"think of the magnetic field of Earth deflecting solar winds"

The solar wind is made of charged particles, Paul.

What about one stream of deflected 'charged particles' flying into other streams of such particles, wouldn't such collisions produce a light static radiation noise that is produced as we speak. Like if you go to the woods and there's a light vague hum.

BTW I haven't reached any conclusion, also not my intention, just checking if there could be other sources for micro-radiation.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

Other sources of microwaves.. of course... all around us. But microwave sources with temperature of 3-4' K ?

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

And I wonder if they have any instruments that can measure microwaves to see and correct for these non-background sources...

Paul is cherishing his confusion. He does NOT want to lose it.

"What about one stream of deflected ‘charged particles’ "

They won't be thermalised to 3K.

"BTW I haven’t reached any conclusion"

Yes you have, Paul. You've decided there's going to be a problem with it. SOMETHING.

Why not instead go to the WP link about the CMB and look at the papers referenced, then read them (and the references of those papers), where they will give you EVERYTHING about this.

And, Paul, in case you're sitting there wondering why you're accused of wanting to cuddle your confusion to your side, your original quesiton "How do we know this is old light from one time and not light from some other more recent time?" was answered by SL (I had merely pointed out that your demonstration analogy was quite fatally flawed as illustration), but you then jumped straight to another "Well, what if it was this?! then did it again when that was answered. After your second attempt to resurrect a "problem" with the CMB, the problem was clearly YOU, not the CMB.

Wow, it would have been cool if you had a hint for SL's question: "(other) microwave sources with temperature of 3-4′ K ?"

Is there anything else that can produce such radiation?

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

No, paul, what would have been cool is if you'd been honest in your question rather than ignore the answer given and instead tried tofind some way to remain correct that there's some "problem" in the CMB picture.

That would have been WAY cooler.

You didn't even acknowledge SL had answered, just leapt on to another gish gallop step to keep your original point alive.

You know, I was just about to show why your query about "anything else do that?" but the only fucking point to it would be to illustrate how half-assed and ignorant the goddamned question was so that maybe you'd learn to THINK before you vomit the next load of bullshit onto the internet.

You, however, would still refuse to learn because you don't think there's anything for you to learn. You CHERISH your ignorance and certainly don't want to restrain your ignorance and become a self-starter in knowledge.

So the only reason to post would be to insult you. So I figured I'd cut the rest of it out and just call you a retard. Saves everyone time, and you can get right on with the hurt whining. Everyone wins.

I got it, if you would give an answer that there are possibly other sources for 3 - 4' K radiation than that could lead to speculation, and we can't have now can we.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

No, the question is moronic, paul, and you're a moron for asking it. And, being a moron, answering it will only wast everyones time, just like SL's was wasted. Because you'll not want to comprehend the answer,only shift to another reason to save your "There's something wrong with the CMB!".

Wow, it was SL who posed the question if there were possibly other sources for 3-4' K radiation.

If you don't want or can't aswer the question than so be it, you aren't obliged to do so, it is a free world.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

Yeah, right. You're now a lying fuckwit, paul. You go ahead and pretend what you like. Reality will disagree. When and if you decide to visit reality, go to the WP site about CMAP and do some fucking effort yourself and start reading.

Paul Dekous

Welcome to Starts With A Bang.

What's WP and CMAP?

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

OK, that was supposed to be WMAP (or CMB is another term to look for, typing confusion there.). But if you don't get WP, then fuck off and work it out, retard.

Hi John, thanks for the welcome, but I'm not a newbie I just don't post question that often (anymore).

Wow, thanks, interesting stuff.

BTW SL, regarding cold radiation I found this:

"Towards the end of the eighteenth century it was discovered by Marc Auguste Pictet of Geneva that cold emanations from a flask of snow could be reflected and focused by mirrors in the same way as the emanations from a heated object."

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

Paul,

Ah! Then there's no surprises here for you.

John

@ Paul

many have searched for an alternative source, but hadn't found anything, and properties of CMB are exactly what it was predicted to be. You might want to check the story of Penzias and Wilson.

The problem is not focusing. The problem is what else gives a uniform (to several parts per 100.000), all sky, microwave glow with a temperature just few degrees above absolute zero, that is not a residual glow of big bang. Find even one plausible source that hasn't been tested and dismissed, and you will certainly make the news.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

SL, planets like Jupiter and Saturn have a temperature of around 100 k, they surely radiate cold that might get colder over time, and they swing around radiating their cold …

But honestly you're right, it was just a thought that surfaced.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

The smoking gun IMO is uniformity. Even if you dismiss the coldness and that it's in the microwave... nothing like stars or planets or nebula or galaxies... on a largest scale would give you that amount of unifor glow in WHOLE sky. Think about it... even on earth.. to make something so uniform that the temperature deviates only by 0.00001 degree wherever you measure.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

.. and it has a perfect black body radiation spectrum...

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

You do have the vacuum which would be 0 K (if not for the CMB), maybe that 0 K is like a ground floor over which everything is cooled down to, an equalizer with 2-3 K as a threshold. BTW one angular degree in space spreads out from a mm to billions of stars.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

FFS. "Radiate Cold".

Fucking moron.

Wow, it is the difference between opening the door of a freezer and an oven; burning your skin with liquid oxygen; cooling atoms with radiation into a Bose–Einstein condensate.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

Are you really this fucking stupid, Paul, or are you trolling? Because I honestly do not thing there could be a person on this planet today who could make that post genuinely believing it correct.

If you're trolling, then please fuck off.

If you're not, then there really is no frigging hope for you at all.

...do not think. Fing left hand thumb...

Wow, think about it, the ice on the North and South Poles is melting, this means less cold radiation on Earth and it is leading to global warming. You of all people should know the importance of cold radiation.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

BTW Wow, haven't you seen the link of SL with Darth Vader he taps energy from the dark-side, that's very cold radiation! Dark Energy en Dark Matter what do you think that is?

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 18 Mar 2017 #permalink

Yes, I have thought about it, paul, and it's a load of nonsensical bollocks. There is no such thing as cold. It's a privative. And only credulous morons or fuckwitted idiot trolls "think" it real.

Fuck, go on, paul dickhead, tell us what energy of photon is "cold radiation". Or what particle is "cold" that gets radiated. When has this been detected. Given your finger is colder than your anus (shove it up your arse to check. Same with your mouth, that shows your finger is colder than other parts of your body too), how much cold does your finger hold?

Given your body is colder than the sun, how much cold does your body radiate?

Given our sun is colder than, say, Sirius A, how much cold does THAT radiate?

When you put ice in liquid nitrogen, how much more cold is in the nitrogen, and could you freeze nitrogen by putting enough water ice in it?

How much ice could you put in to a flask of nitrogen to make it freeze? And since your body contains cold, how many people's cold could be used to freeze helium?

When you have cold hands, where does the cold go when you rub your hands together for warmth?

What, then, is the minimum temperature, since all you need to do to get less than absolute zero is focus the cold some more?

What is the maximum temperature? Absolute hot. What is that temperature? The maximum heat a body can have, when there's no cold at all in the body, only heat?

Is there dark, paul dickhead? You know the stuff that fills the room before you turn the light on? The stuff filling the universe with all that black. Is that dark or is dark nonexistent and just an absence of light? What is the term for something that doesn't exist but is described as a thing when it's just a lack of something that does exist?

Is void a thing? Does space contain "void" that is pushed out of the way by matter?

Where does sobriety go when you drink alcohol? Does drunk exist in alcohol, if so, what is drunk made of? Does sobriety exist in humans or are some born without sobriety and have to acquire some via some method?

Did you eat food laden with stupidity, or did you vomit out the intelligence when young?

What is the temperature of something without any heat or cold in it? What's the temperature of something with EQUAL amounts of hot and cold in it?

When you punch a hole in paper, where did the hole come from? What created the void that now fills that hole that wasn't there before?

If something radiates less cold, does it warm up or cool down? What insulates from cold radiation? And how does it do that?

Radiation comes down to detection. If you are able to detect something moving away from an object, than there is an emission. Think of sounds, if you are quiet than you are emitting silence, just like black is a color that can be seen. So yes one can emit cold. I can absorb heat and give you cold, holes in space being exchanged. In the case of rubbing your hands your stomach will receive the cold, and you'll get hungry to fill the void that is sending out a signal. Yin and Yang.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 19 Mar 2017 #permalink

And so you can tell me what it is that is radiated, dickhead. Is it a photon? Of what energy? Where is the experiment that detected this cold leaving?

How much silence emitted will make the drone of a bumblebee nonexistent? What emits black? What frequency is a black photon?

Is hungry cold, then? How much hungry energy equals one cold?

You're getting WAAAAAAAY behind in answering these questions you think are so obvious, paul dickhead. Catch up on them.

How does the cold get to your hungry? Doesn't the heat in your arms get negated by the cold instead, making your arms colder. But doesn't your arms get warmer when you rub your hands? So is this cold a different cold, one that makes you warmer? If so, how does this cold generate warmth and yet still be cold?

I'll wait until you've found the information that you need and collected it to a forum-capable format. Because the above question is all quite a lot to answer. So I'll wait until you've answered all the above.

You do know that an object vibrates in reference of something, and that the moment a photon leaves an Atom, cold is given then and there to the Atom in replacement of the photon, action-reaction. Just like a bumblebee makes a sound by shaking up the air and getting itself colder. If there is no air and thus very cold the bee will make no sound, because too much cold is given and heat is taken.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 19 Mar 2017 #permalink

@ #38
“…cooling atoms with radiation into a Bose–Einstein condensate”

You are, of course, correct. That technique, laser cooling, was not only employed to create in 1995 the first "pure" Bose–Einstein condensate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate#Gaseous ), but it also won Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light"

Keep going, paul dickhead. You've not even scratched the surface.

Go on, teabaggie. Tell us how photons cool. Tell us what these cold photons are and describe how they are the opposite of heat photons.

"... Tell us how photons cool ..."

You'll need to read, but if you do ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cooling

As mentioned in my prior post, this technique won Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light”

Oh no no no, teabaggie. That link doesn't talk about cold radiation cooling. You'll have to explain it, or find the link that explains how this cold radiation works to cool matter.

"Oh no no no, ..."

You are mistaken.

@ #38, the post to which I replied, referred to, and I quote again, “…cooling atoms with radiation into a Bose–Einstein condensate”

My reply @ #57 was, and I quote, "You are, of course, correct. That technique, laser cooling, was not only employed to create in 1995 the first “pure” Bose–Einstein condensate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate#Gaseous ), but it also won Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light” "

I was not replying to you. I was replying to Paul Dekous, the author of #38

@ paul

" if you are quiet than you are emitting silence"

well no.. if you are quiet, it mean your are not emitting anything. It doesn't mean you are emitting this thing which has no value.

" just like black is a color that can be seen"

depends on the color model. In a subtractive model like CMYK, yes.. it is a color. But in additive model like RGB, black is not a color. Black represents absence of light. Same as silence in sound.

There are places in physics that use (not)something to describe something... like in electricity and positive current. But that's a convention out of practical purposes, since electrons have negative sign.. again due to convention... so we end up counting holes and calling them positive, but that's not the same as cold :)

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 19 Mar 2017 #permalink

No, you are mistaken, teabaggie.

I asked how cold radiation caused the bose-einstein condensate to be cooled, like paul dickhead claims.

If you don't know how, then fair enough, it awaits paul his answer to the question.

p.s. in above... should be (opposite)something, instead of (not)something.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 19 Mar 2017 #permalink

Either is used, SL.

But paul has gone quiet and teabaggie has failed so far to support this idea of cold radiation cause BEC cooling.

@ #64

I was not replying to you. I was replying to Paul Dekous, the author of #38.

Until and unless you find something useful to say about the fact of using radiation to cool into a Bose–Einstein condensate, I bid you fond farewell.

Bon voyage et bon chance!

"@ #64

I was not replying to you."

Oh, so paul was mistaken.

And you were mistaken, paul already knows BEC cooling. But he, as apparently you do too, think that it's cold radiation doing it.

… chuckling … And, of course, I said nothing whatsoever about “… this idea of cold radiation cause BEC cooling”.

If you can find a reference to such, feel free to post it.
You'll fail.
Again.

"If you can find a reference to such"

You are mistaken, teabaggie. You were asking paul. We have to wait until paul dickhead comes back with his links to it.

LOL! Move those goalposts! Woo Hoo!

Hurry up, paul, both teabaggie and I are waiting.... You can tell when teabaggie is upset because he starts giggling.

Vous êtes une source de grande joie mon ami!

Yes, yes, teabaggie. You're a retard. We know. Now let the adults talk. Speak tongues like the evangelical retard you are on your own dime.

FFS. You're distracting paul dickhead.

"... You’re a retard. ..."

Quelle jeste!

... and you remain mistaken.

Paul @ #38, the post to which I replied, referred to, and I quote again, “…cooling atoms with radiation into a Bose–Einstein condensate” was quite correct.

Laser cooling, was not only employed to create in 1995 the first “pure” Bose–Einstein condensate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate#Gaseous ), but it also won Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light”

SL, "Black represents absence of light."

If it 'represents' something than it is emitting a signal, think of binary code in your computer the '0' represents a value otherwise you could not process operations, in physics there is no 'nothing'. Think of the black spectral lines and what they tell us.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 19 Mar 2017 #permalink

Hey, you're still not even started on what photon is being radiated in "cold radiation". I was here long before SL's question, and you're still missing the answer to that.

And there's all the other questions first.

You're sitting there with this asinine claim of cold radiation and you all uncomprehending, still haven't given a single clue as to what the fuck that stuff is.

If you've got time to drift off to answer SL's question, you are CLEARLY not answering or even attempting to answer this whole "cold radiation" bollocks you've plonked out on the table here and have a sledge hammer hanging over.

… chuckling … And you never did come up with a reference to support your assertion @ #68 “But he, as apparently you do too, think that it’s cold radiation doing it”, did you?
I knew you couldn’t

I’ll let you fulminate now about how everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
Have a good time!

Wow, I didn't write that cold was emitted by a photon.

BTW I like to go for a walk to the park on a Sunday afternoon, I can suggest everyone to do the same … so I'm not answering all your maniacal questions. Note, I already said that SL was right about CMB so this is about cold emission is a slightly different thing.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 19 Mar 2017 #permalink

OK, so what is the particle radiated by cold radiation, paul dickhead? You kept bleating on about photons so given the complete lack of any substantial explanation of this phenomena you believe so much to be real, the limited information indicated photons were involved.

So, it's not a photon.

Which force particle is it that is radiated by this cold?

It's not the photon.

"this is about cold emission"

Before it was "cold radiation". Surely they are the same thing. Radiating is photon emission. Emission is photon radiation. You know, that whole "emission/absorption" thing that optics is all about, and the very definition of black body.

Instead of pratting about outside, you need to work out how the fuck to think, paul dickhead.

Because so far you've got a bullshit claim of cold radiation, now cold emission and black light, and cold being hungry. And absolutely no fucking clue what you're talking about.

Remember, paul dickhead, this was you:

#33 "a temperature of around 100 k, they surely radiate cold that might get colder over time"

radiate cold.

What is it that is being radiated? Walking about wiggling your finger about your arsehole is not producing any actual explanation of what you "think" is going to be this phenomenon you are so wonderfully uninformed about, yet so innocently convinced exists.

Paul Dekous @ #76 (since a certain someone we are familiar with has a difficult time keeping the conversations distinct)

You may want to revisit some of your positions, but as for your comment about, “…cooling atoms with radiation into a Bose–Einstein condensate”, you are was quite correct.
Laser cooling, was not only employed to create in 1995 the first “pure” Bose–Einstein condensate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate#Gaseous ), but it also won Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light”

Dr. Chu went on to other efforts before returning to academe.

Don’t let the badgering, harassing, and quite frankly, the falsehood-laden interrogative style get to you. When you’re accused of saying something you didn’t say, such as “black photon”, just reply that you did not say anything about black photons, and that you’ll not reply to such misleading nonsense.

Teabaggie, we all know you do not know how comprehension works or what "meaning" means. Now please fuck off while paul dickhead works out what the fuck he's talking about. You're just confusing him even more.

Ethan, you see why this fucking retard is a toxic lake of shit on this site.

But you don't give a shit, do you, ethan. Not your problem. You even get paid for this shit happening. Next time you wonder why your site is getting shitcanned, look in the mirror.

Well, Ethan, care to put some minimal effort in here and create a "Why the fuck is cold not a thing (synopsis)" or do you not give a shit that your site is being used to argue that planets radiate cold and therefore must get colder, that dark is totally a thing, because you can see it's dark, and all the rest of this bollocks your being force fed by teabaggie and paul dickhead here?

Or are you too lazy to put that sort of effort in merely to educate others?

I, and thousands of others, are all agog. Hell, most of slashdot, who get really pissed off when you get dice to run an advert for you pretending to be an anonymous submitter.

Were they right after all?

Imagine you are in a canoe pedaling upstream, now the wilder you pedal the warmer you are but because of your actions you are causing more turbulence in the current, generating eddies or such and slowing down the current, so the output of flow is lower than if you would be in a smaller (colder) boat also pedaling upstream. Now imagine no boat than you get the biggest stream, radiation, emission of cold. So large emission of flow is the ground state, the coldest radiation. Now see a particle move through a field or visa versa a field moving through a particle. Imagine seeing dark, than you are getting the coldest flow, emission, radiation.

By Paul Dekous (not verified) on 19 Mar 2017 #permalink

Imagine you answered the question, dickhead. Plainly you are full of crap.

Welp, gave you a chance, moron.

I hate to interrupt the love-fest going on here. But I have a different question...

The "markedly different in detail" CMB photo from the article, that the dinosaurs would have seen had they built radio telescopes. Can we actually know how it would appear? Or is that just a random image with the same sort of spectrum of variation?

By Ross Presser (not verified) on 24 Mar 2017 #permalink

No, please don't interrupt what you are imaginging, Ross. Since your imagination is so vividly able to construct fanatasies, answering you would be rather a waste of time since there is no way to know beforehand what your mind will make of an answer.

Making an answer to a query of yours rather risky.

I could answer, but have no way to know what it would do.