Guest guest Posted July 9, 2001 Report Share Posted July 9, 2001 > Namaste List, > In a short deviation from the normal > metaphysical nature of the list, I am sharing this > scientific article that was gleaned from the New > York Times. The great sages, saints and seers of > India have known for thousands of years what this > article says by the name Om, nada or Shakti. > > May 16, 2001 > > > Scientists Detect the Traces of the Seeds of Cosmic > Structures > > By JAMES GLANZ > telescope in eastern Australia has seen what appear > to be the faint imprint of waves, much like sound > waves, that may have rippled through the gases of > the young universe. Scientists have long theorized > such waves were the seeds for all structures > glittering in the heavens today. > > The imprints were revealed within the clumps and > filamentary patterns formed by tens of thousands of > galaxies that the telescope observed in Earth's > cosmic neighborhood. > > The findings, which were presented last week at a > scientific conference but are being made available > to scientists around the world today, have emerged > from the largest and most detailed mapping of > galaxies ever made. > > Using the 12-foot-wide Anglo-Australian Telescope > near Coonabarabran, Australia, the project - > involving scientists at a dozen institutions in > Australia, Britain and the United States - has > mapped the positions of nearly 170,000 galaxies. The > map not only revealed great clusters and filigree > patterns made by the galaxies, which earlier surveys > had seen, but also let project scientists analyze > the data for more subtle features. > > When they did so, the scientists found that hidden > in the irregular clumps and filaments were imprints > of waves of particular sizes, or wavelengths, that > cosmologists believe were generated in the explosive > birth of the universe. The waves are thought to have > seeded the primordial gases with slight > irregularities that later grew into galaxies and > clusters. > > If confirmed, the observations would be scientists' > first direct glimpse of what amounts to a blueprint > for the structure of the universe. > > "We're seeing the big picture - cosmology in the > early universe and in the local universe coming > together for the first time," said Dr. Karl > Glazebrook, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins > University and a member of the project, called the > 2-Degree Field Galaxy Red Shift Survey, or 2dF. > > Dr. Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the University of > Pennsylvania, said that emissions from the early > universe, called the cosmic microwave background, > had provided strong evidence that the waves existed > when the universe was just a few hundred thousand > years old. But the span of billions of years of > cosmic history since then has erased all but slight > traces of the original waves, or wiggles, in > structures today, Dr. Tegmark said. > > "None of the earlier surveys had the sheer brute > size that was needed to see them," Dr. Tegmark said. > "Not only are the wiggles there, but they're the > right size." > > The team's paper on the finding, whose lead author > is Dr. Will Percival of the University of Edinburgh, > is being posted today on an electronic archive at > Los Alamos National Laboratory > (arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph /0105252) where scientists > often place their new findings. > > Dr. John Peacock, a professor of physics and > astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, said that > even larger surveys would be needed to ensure that > the difficult measurements were correct. He > presented the results last week at a conference at > the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near > Chicago. > > One of the organizers of that conference, Dr. Joshua > Frieman of Fermilab and the University of Chicago, > said that a much larger survey now in progress, > called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and involving > the United States, Germany and Japan, would among > other things determine about a million galaxy > positions over the next several years. He said that > the initial finding by the 2dF team suggested that > the Sloan survey would be able to use the wiggles as > a sort of probe of the overall contents of the > universe. > > The 2dF finding "holds out the promise that when we > have an even larger sample, we'll be able to use > this as another cosmological tool," said Dr. > Frieman, who like Dr. Tegmark is a member of the > Sloan team. > > Strange as it sounds, the problem of how structures > like galaxies and galaxy clusters could have formed > has persistently bedeviled scientists working out > the theory of the Big Bang, the great explosion in > which the universe apparently began. > > Early measurements of the cosmic background > radiation, emitted from the hot gases of the young > universe, seemed to show that it was nearly smooth > and featureless, with no irregularities that could > have spawned lumpy structures like galaxies. > > But in 1992, a NASA satellite called the Cosmic > Background Explorer satellite, or COBE, made highly > sensitive measurements of the radiation and saw > minute temperature variations suggesting the > existence of so- called acoustic waves sloshing in > the early universe. > > Subsequently, measurements of the radiation have > turned up a series of discrete "tones," or > wavelengths, that theorists have predicted should > have been generated in the explosion. But while > those waves are thought to have been the seeds that > allowed galaxies and other structures to coalesce, > no direct evidence for the waves had until this > point turned up in the confusion of the present-day > heavens. > > The 2dF survey tried to find them by rigging the > Anglo-Australian Telescope with robotics, electronic > light detectors and computers that enabled it to > determine the distances and positions on the sky of > hundreds of galaxies at a time. > > "The question is, Are the imprints that we see in > the microwave background still apparent in the > galaxy distribution that we see today?" said Dr. > Matthew Colless, a 2dF member at the Australian > National University. "The answer turned out to be > yes, somewhat to our surprise." > > The size of the imprints seen by the survey range > from about 300 million to 1.5 billion light-years, > Dr. Peacock said. For reference, the Milky Way's > nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, is about 2.5 > million light-years away. One of the largest > clusters of galaxies in the Milky Way's > neighborhood, called the Coma cluster, is about 500 > million light-years away. > > The intensity of the features seen by the survey > give an accounting of all the matter in the > universe. The results confirm studies that have > concluded that a vast majority of the cosmos is not > ordinary matter but dark matter, whose gravity is > felt but which has not been detected directly. > > But Dr. Carlos Frenk, an astrophysicist at the > University of Durham in Britain and a member of the > 2dF team, said the importance of the findings were > to be found in the grand perspective they provided. > > "For the first time, we have a convincing connection > between the initial state as probed by the microwave > background and the present universe as probed by the > galaxies," Dr. Frenk said. "The microwave background > tells us about the seeds, and what we are doing now > is reaping the fruit that's been growing through 10 > billion years of cosmic evolution." > > > ATTACHMENT part 2 image/gif name=relatedArticles.gif > ATTACHMENT part 3 image/gif name=spacer.gif > ATTACHMENT part 4 image/gif name=readerOpinions.gif > ATTACHMENT part 5 image/gif name=a.gif ===== Cognosce Te Ipsum Get personalized email addresses from Mail http://personal.mail./ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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