Earth
A living blue oasis adrift in cosmic night.
All‑sky map of primordial radiation, 380 000 years after the Big Bang
- ID:
- 001-001
- Discipline:
- Cosmological
- Era:
- Cosmic
- Civilization:
- Humanity
- Medium:
- Map
The Cosmic Microwave Background is not just the oldest light in the Universe—it’s the oldest *anything* we can observe. Born 380 000 years after the Big Bang, this faint radiation marks the first moment matter and energy decoupled, allowing light to move freely through space. What we see is a baby photo of the cosmos, imprinted with tiny temperature ripples just 0.001% in size—fossils of primordial sound waves in the early plasma. Those ripples became the scaffolding for all future structure: galaxies, stars, planets, and life itself. The map is so precise that cosmologists have used it to measure the age of the Universe to within 21 million years out of 13.8 billion—a margin of error of just 0.15%. Even more astonishing: the map reveals that the Universe is flat to within 0.4%, confirming predictions from cosmic inflation theory. And beneath it all, the CMB glows faintly at just 2.725 Kelvin—just above absolute zero—across the entire sky. To see it is to look directly into the birth of time, and to witness the afterglow of creation still echoing all around us.
All‑sky map of primordial radiation, 380 000 years after the Big Bang
- ID:
- 001-001
- Discipline:
- Cosmological
- Era:
- Cosmic
- Civilization:
- Humanity
- Medium:
- Map
The Cosmic Microwave Background is not just the oldest light in the Universe—it’s the oldest *anything* we can observe. Born 380 000 years after the Big Bang, this faint radiation marks the first moment matter and energy decoupled, allowing light to move freely through space. What we see is a baby photo of the cosmos, imprinted with tiny temperature ripples just 0.001% in size—fossils of primordial sound waves in the early plasma. Those ripples became the scaffolding for all future structure: galaxies, stars, planets, and life itself. The map is so precise that cosmologists have used it to measure the age of the Universe to within 21 million years out of 13.8 billion—a margin of error of just 0.15%. Even more astonishing: the map reveals that the Universe is flat to within 0.4%, confirming predictions from cosmic inflation theory. And beneath it all, the CMB glows faintly at just 2.725 Kelvin—just above absolute zero—across the entire sky. To see it is to look directly into the birth of time, and to witness the afterglow of creation still echoing all around us.
