This is a very exciting time for science news as scientists have found pretty substantial evidence that, like my waistline, the universe is actually expanding. Perhaps the universe eating too many donuts?
Scientists have found an orientation, or key polarization, of tiny microwaves that are caused by gravitational waves. These gravitational waves are said to have originated from the Big Bang, as theorized in Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
Marc Kamionkowski is a physicist at John Hopkins University. He told reporters during a webcast last week that this discovery can be the missing link.
“It’s something that we thought should be there, but we weren’t really sure. It has been eagerly sought now for close to two decades.”
Gravitational waves leave a patterned imprint in space as they travel and also have a left or right-skewed polarization. By using a telescope located in the South Pole, scientists found these polarization signals which can prove that the universe is inflating. The telescope is known as Bicep, or Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization.
“This is not something that’s just a home run, but a grand slam. It’s the smoking fun for inflation. It hints at unification of the fundamental forces at energies 10 trillions of times higher than those accessible at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN,” Kamionkowski stated.
Computer models suggest that the universe is inflating by 100 trillion trillion times in .00000000000000000000000000000000001 (10 to the minus 34) seconds after the Big Bang occurred. The Big Bang is said to have occurred 13.8 billion years ago.
“These results are as extraordinary as they get, and they will require the most extraordinary scrutiny,” Kamionkowski stated.
This is groundbreaking evidence for science buffs that the universe is expanding. Are you excited?
Source: Discovery.com
