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Article: Satellite homes in on the infant universe. (Cosmic Revelations).(Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe )
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- February 15, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Like beaming parents showing off pictures of their newborn, astronomers this week proudly unveiled the sharpest snapshot of the baby universe ever taken. The scientists had a lot to smile about.
Their infant portrait, revealed by the remnant glow from the Big Bang, pegs the universe's age to an unprecedented accuracy of 1 percent. Rather than using more approximate numbers, astronomers can now say the universe is 13.7 billion years old, the researchers report. The new data also confirm that the universe began with a brief but humongous growth spurt, dubbed inflation. Inflation stretched to cosmic scales random patches of the fabric of space-time that had minuscule ...