OLDEST LIGHT IN THE UNIVERSE 🤯 13 BILLION YEARS OLD WITH BRIAN COX

This light, known as the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, marks a time 380,000 years after the universe’s birth, when protons and electrons joined to form the first atoms. Before that time, the cosmos was opaque to light.

If scientists can estimate how far light from the CMB traveled to reach Earth, they can calculate the universe’s age. That’s easier said than done, though. Judging cosmic distances from Earth is hard. So instead, scientists measure the angle in the sky between two distant objects, with Earth and the two objects forming a cosmic triangle. If scientists also know the physical separation between those objects, they can use high school geometry to estimate the distance of the objects from Earth.

Subtle variations in the CMB’s glow offer anchor points to form the other two vertices of the triangle. Those variations in temperature and polarization resulted from quantum fluctuations in the early universe that got amplified by the expanding universe into regions of varying density. (The denser patches would go on to form galaxy clusters.) Scientists have a strong enough understanding of the universe’s early years to know that these variations in the CMB should typically be spaced out every billion light-years for temperature and half that for polarization. (For scale, our Milky Way galaxy is about 200,000 light-years in diameter.)

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope measured the CMB fluctuations with unprecedented resolution and sky coverage, taking a closer look at the polarization of the light. “The Planck satellite measured the same light, but by measuring its polarization in higher fidelity, the new picture from Atacama reveals more of the oldest patterns we’ve ever seen,” said Suzanne Staggs, the telescope’s principal investigator and the Henry deWolf Smyth Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

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[leroy.jackson.]

Brian cox reminded me of another scientist Carl sagan, who was also skilled at explaining science to the layman ( general public).👍😁🇺🇲

[ceaservizcaino]

We can see the oldest lights right ? Okay serious question . Why do we still see it ? How long till that light goes away