The Farthest We Can Ever See into the Universe

Earlier this week on Sept. 17th 2009, the European Space Agency released first light images of its Planck telescope.

The Planck observatory scans the sky using highly sensitive detectors that measure tiny variations of temperature in the Cosmic microwave background.

At the beginning of the universe, the temperatures were very high, everywhere the temperatures were around 3,000 degrees - and as it expanded, over the course of 13.5 billion years, the universe cooled to just under three degrees.

But the universe did not cool uniformly everywhere. Red parts are slightly hotter than the blue parts. These changes give clues to what the universe was like early in its life, as well as help us understand the distribution of galaxies everywhere and even help us determine the shape of the universe today.

These images are pictures of the universe when it was just a few hundred thousand years old, this is the farthest back in time we can ever see and they tell us not only where we've been, but help us understand where we're going.

This has been another infinite minute.

Here is the press release of the first light images from Planck:

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM5CMFWNZF_index_1.html

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• cosmology
• astronomy
• most important image
• planck telescope
• esa
• infinite minute

[sbergman27]

Strictly speaking, this is probably *not* the farthest back we can ever see. Just as far as possible with EM radiation. There should be a Cosmic Gravitational Wave Background, which could take us all the way back to the BB itself. Also, I believe, a Cosmic Neutrino Background. We just aren't close to having gravity and neutrino telescopes yet. That first 370,000 years may yet be probed.

[TeamApparition]

@randy95023 MIND=BLOWN

[MortenBoHansen]

i just have one question. If the gear you use to detect these lines of univers has a border of distance it can travel. It does not mean the univers is round. Only what kind of gear you used to messure with.

[MortenBoHansen]

@MrCeltic76 no.

[Nez949]

Maybe instead of a Big Bang, it was a Big Divide? :]

[xbuster17]

so the entire universe looks like a spiral galaxy? what's the center?

[MrCeltic76]

IF WE HAD A BIG ENOUGH TELESCOPE WITH BIG ENOUGH MIRRORS COULD WE SEE BACK TO THE SO CALLED START???

[MrMilfhunter2003]

AND IM SURE THIS GUY WAS AROUND A FEW BILLION YRS AGO...HE KNOW IT ALLLLL..OR SEEMS TO

[randy95023]

What if there are Billions of other Universes that are hundreds of Trillions of Light Years Away? Their light won't even reach us until we are a "dead" Universe of cold floating atoms in the void of space. Now THAT is far. Kinda hard to comprehend, but why would it be impossible? It is quite possible, but we would never know it...

[frylok753]

@babypappa 4 x 4 = 12