CMB radiation

Extragalactic microwave background radiation occurs in the frequency range from 500 MHz to 500 GHz, corresponding to wavelengths from 60 cm to 0.6 mm. This background radiation carries information about the processes that took place in the Universe before the formation of galaxies, quasars and other objects. This radiation, called the cosmic microwave background radiation, was discovered in 1965, although it was predicted back in the 40s by George Gamow and has been studied by astronomers for decades.

In the expanding Universe, the average density of matter depends on time - in the past it was higher. However, during expansion, not only the density, but also the thermal energy of the substance changes, which means that at the early stage of expansion the Universe was not only dense, but also hot. As a consequence, in our time residual radiation should be observed, the spectrum of which is the same as the spectrum of absolutely solid, and this radiation must be in highest degree isotropic. In 1964, A.A. Penzias and R. Wilson, testing a sensitive radio antenna, discovered very weak background microwave radiation, which they could not get rid of in any way. Its temperature turned out to be 2.73 K, which is close to the predicted value. From isotropy experiments it was shown that the source of the microwave background radiation cannot be located inside the Galaxy, since then a concentration of radiation towards the center of the Galaxy should be observed. The source of radiation could not be located inside the Solar system, because There would be a daily variation in radiation intensity. Because of this, a conclusion was made about the extragalactic nature of this background radiation. Thus, the hypothesis of a hot Universe received an observational basis.

To understand nature cosmic microwave background radiation it is necessary to turn to the processes that took place in the early stages of the expansion of the Universe. Let us consider how the physical conditions in the Universe changed during the expansion process.

Now every cubic centimeter of space contains about 500 relict photons, and there is much less matter per volume. Since the ratio of the number of photons to the number of baryons is maintained during the expansion process, but the energy of the photons during the expansion of the Universe decreases over time due to the red shift, we can conclude that at some time in the past the energy density of radiation was greater than the energy density of matter particles. This time is called the radiation stage in the evolution of the Universe. The radiation stage was characterized by equality of temperature of the substance and radiation. At that time, radiation completely determined the nature of the expansion of the Universe. About a million years after the expansion of the Universe began, the temperature dropped to several thousand degrees and a recombination of electrons, which were previously free particles, took place with protons and helium nuclei, i.e. formation of atoms. The Universe has become transparent to radiation, and it is this radiation that we now detect and call relict radiation. True, since that time, due to the expansion of the Universe, photons have decreased their energy by about 100 times. Figuratively speaking, cosmic microwave background quanta “imprinted” the era of recombination and carry direct information about the distant past.

After recombination, matter began to evolve independently for the first time, regardless of radiation, and densities began to appear in it - the embryos of future galaxies and their clusters. This is why experiments to study the properties of cosmic microwave background radiation - its spectrum and spatial fluctuations - are so important for scientists. Their efforts were not in vain: in the early 90s. The Russian space experiment Relikt-2 and the American Kobe discovered differences in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation of neighboring areas of the sky, and the deviation from the average temperature is only about a thousandth of a percent. These temperature variations carry information about the deviation of the density of matter from the average value during the recombination epoch. After recombination, matter in the Universe was distributed almost evenly, and where the density was at least slightly above average, the attraction was stronger. It was density variations that subsequently led to the formation of large-scale structures, galaxy clusters and individual galaxies observed in the Universe. By modern ideas, the first galaxies must have formed at an epoch that corresponds to redshifts from 4 to 8.

Is there a chance to look even further into the era before recombination? Until the moment of recombination, it was the pressure of electromagnetic radiation that mainly created the gravitational field that slowed down the expansion of the Universe. At this stage, the temperature varied in inverse proportion to square root from the time elapsed since the expansion began. Let us consider successively the various stages of expansion of the early Universe.

At a temperature of approximately 1013 Kelvin, pairs of various particles and antiparticles were born and annihilated in the Universe: protons, neutrons, mesons, electrons, neutrinos, etc. When the temperature dropped to 5*1012 K, almost all protons and neutrons were annihilated, turning into radiation quanta; Only those for which there were “not enough” antiparticles remained. It is from these “excess” protons and neutrons that the matter of the modern observable Universe mainly consists.

At T = 2*1010 K, all-penetrating neutrinos stopped interacting with matter - from that moment there should have been a “relict neutrino background”, which may be detected during future neutrino experiments.

Everything that has just been discussed happened at ultra-high temperatures in the first second after the expansion of the Universe began. A few seconds after the “birth” of the Universe, the era of primary nucleosynthesis began, when nuclei of deuterium, helium, lithium and beryllium were formed. It lasted approximately three minutes, and its main result was the formation of helium nuclei (25% of the mass of all matter in the Universe). The remaining elements, heavier than helium, made up a negligible part of the substance - about 0.01%.

After the era of nucleosynthesis and before the era of recombination (about 106 years), a quiet expansion and cooling of the Universe occurred, and then - hundreds of millions of years after the beginning - the first galaxies and stars appeared.

In recent decades, the development of cosmology and elementary particle physics has made it possible to theoretically consider the very initial, “superdense” period of the expansion of the Universe. It turns out that at the very beginning of the expansion, when the temperature was incredibly high (more than 1028 K), the Universe could be in a special state in which it expanded with acceleration, and the energy per unit volume remained constant. This stage of expansion was called inflationary. Such a state of matter is possible under one condition - negative pressure. The stage of ultra-rapid inflationary expansion covered a tiny period of time: it ended at about 10–36 s. It is believed that the real “birth” of elementary particles of matter in the form in which we know them now occurred just after the end of the inflationary stage and was caused by the decay of the hypothetical field. After this, the expansion of the Universe continued by inertia.

The inflationary universe hypothesis answers a number of questions important issues cosmologies, which until recently were considered inexplicable paradoxes, in particular on the question of the cause of the expansion of the Universe. If in its history the Universe really went through an era when there was a large negative pressure, then gravity should inevitably cause not attraction, but mutual repulsion of material particles. And this means that the Universe began to expand rapidly, explosively. Of course, the model of the inflationary Universe is only a hypothesis: even an indirect verification of its provisions requires instruments that simply have not yet been created. However, the idea of ​​the accelerated expansion of the Universe at the earliest stage of its evolution has firmly entered into modern cosmology.

Speaking about the early Universe, we are suddenly transported from the largest cosmic scales to the region of the microcosm, which is described by the laws quantum mechanics. The physics of elementary particles and ultra-high energies is closely intertwined in cosmology with the physics of giant astronomical systems. The largest and the smallest are connected here with each other. This is the amazing beauty of our world, full of unexpected connections and deep unity.

The manifestations of life on Earth are extremely diverse. Life on Earth is represented by nuclear and prenuclear, single- and multicellular creatures; multicellular, in turn, are represented by fungi, plants and animals. Any of these kingdoms unites various types, classes, orders, families, genera, species, populations and individuals.

In all the seemingly endless diversity of living things, several different levels of organization of living things can be distinguished: molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, ontogenetic, population, species, biogeocenotic, biosphere. The listed levels are highlighted for ease of study. If we try to identify the main levels, reflecting not so much the levels of study as the levels of organization of life on Earth, then the main criteria for such identification should be the presence of specific elementary, discrete structures and elementary phenomena. With this approach, it turns out to be necessary and sufficient to distinguish molecular genetic, ontogenetic, population-species and biogeocenotic levels (N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky and others).

Molecular genetic level. When studying this level, apparently, the greatest clarity was achieved in the definition of basic concepts, as well as in the identification of elementary structures and phenomena. The development of the chromosomal theory of heredity, the analysis of the mutation process, and the study of the structure of chromosomes, phages and viruses revealed the main features of the organization of elementary genetic structures and related phenomena. It is known that the main structures at this level (codes of hereditary information transmitted from generation to generation) are DNA differentiated by length into code elements - triplets of nitrogenous bases that form genes.

Genes at this level of life organization represent elementary units. The main elementary phenomena associated with genes can be considered their local structural changes (mutations) and the transfer of information stored in them to intracellular control systems.

Convariant reduplication occurs according to the template principle by breaking the hydrogen bonds of the DNA double helix with the participation of the enzyme DNA polymerase. Then each of the strands builds a corresponding strand, after which the new strands are complementarily connected to each other. The pyrimidine and purine bases of the complementary strands are held together by hydrogen bonds by DNA polymerase. This process is carried out very quickly. Thus, the self-assembly of Escherichia coli DNA, consisting of approximately 40 thousand nucleotide pairs, requires only 100 s. Genetic information is transferred from the nucleus by mRNA molecules to the cytoplasm to ribosomes and there participates in protein synthesis. A protein containing thousands of amino acids is synthesized in a living cell in 5–6 minutes, and faster in bacteria.

The main control systems, both during convariant reduplication and during intracellular information transfer, use the “matrix principle”, i.e. are matrices next to which the corresponding specific macromolecules are built. Currently, the structure embedded in the nucleic acids a code that serves as a template for the synthesis of specific protein structures in cells. Reduplication, based on matrix copying, preserves not only the genetic norm, but also deviations from it, i.e. mutations (the basis of the evolutionary process). Sufficiently accurate knowledge of the molecular genetic level is a necessary prerequisite for a clear understanding of life phenomena occurring at all other levels of life organization.

What does “relict” radiation indicate?

Cosmic background radiation is called background cosmic radiation, the spectrum of which corresponds to the spectrum of a completely black body with a temperature of about 3 degrees Kelvin. This radiation is observed at wavelengths ranging from several millimeters to tens of centimeters; it is practically isotropic. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation was a decisive confirmation of the theory of the hot Universe, according to which in the past the Universe had a much higher density of matter than now and a very high temperature. The relic radiation recorded today is information about long-past events, when the age of the Universe was only 300–500 thousand years, and the density was about 1000 atoms per cubic centimeter. It was then that the temperature of the primordial Universe dropped to approximately 3000 degrees Kelvin, elementary particles formed hydrogen and helium atoms and the sudden disappearance of free electrons led to the radiation that we today call cosmic microwave background radiation.

One of interesting discoveries associated with the electromagnetic spectrum is cosmic microwave background radiation. It was discovered by accident, although the possibility of its existence was predicted.

History of the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation

History of the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation started in 1964. American laboratory staff Bell Phone developed a communication system using artificial satellite Earth. This system was supposed to work on waves 7.5 centimeters long. Such short waves have some advantages in relation to satellite radio communications, but Arno Penzias And Robert Wilson no one solved this problem. They were pioneers in this field and had to ensure that there was no strong interference on the same wavelength, or that the telecom workers knew about such interference in advance. At that time, it was believed that the source of radio waves coming from space could only be point objects like radio galaxies or stars. Sources of radio waves. The scientists had at their disposal an exceptionally accurate receiver and a rotating horn antenna. With their help, scientists could listen to the entire firmament in much the same way as a doctor listens to a patient's chest with a stethoscope.

Natural source signal

And as soon as the antenna was pointed at one of the points in the sky, a curved line danced on the oscilloscope screen. Typical signal natural source . The experts were probably surprised at their luck: at the very first measured point there was a source of radio emission! But no matter where they pointed their antenna, the effect remained the same. Scientists checked the functionality of the equipment again and again, but it was in in perfect order. And finally they realized that they had discovered a previously unknown natural phenomenon: the entire Universe seemed to be filled with radio waves of centimeter length. If we could see radio waves, the firmament would appear to us glowing from edge to edge.
Radio waves of the Universe. Penzias and Wilson's discovery was published. And not only they, but also scientists from many other countries began searching for sources of mysterious radio waves, picked up by all antennas and receivers adapted for this purpose, no matter where they are and no matter what point in the sky they are aimed at, and the intensity of radio emission at wavelength 7.5 centimeter at any point was absolutely the same, it seemed to be smeared evenly across the entire sky.

CMB radiation calculated by scientists

Soviet scientists A. G. Doroshkevich and I. D. Novikov, who predicted cosmic microwave background radiation before it opens, made complex calculations. They took into account all the sources of radiation available in our Universe, and also took into account how the radiation of certain objects changed over time. And it turned out that in the region of centimeter waves all these radiations are minimal and, therefore, are in no way responsible for the detected sky glow. Meanwhile, further calculations showed that the density of smeared radiation is very high. Here is a comparison of photon jelly (that’s what scientists called the mysterious radiation) with the mass of all matter in the Universe. If all the matter of all visible Galaxies is “spread” evenly throughout the entire space of the Universe, then there will be only one hydrogen atom per three cubic meters of space (for simplicity, we will consider all the matter of stars to be hydrogen). And at the same time, every cubic centimeter of real space contains about 500 photons of radiation. Quite a lot, even if we compare not the number of units of matter and radiation, but directly their masses. Where did such intense radiation come from? At one time, the Soviet scientist A. A. Friedman, solving Einstein’s famous equations, discovered that our Universe is in constant expansion. Confirmation of this was soon found. American E. Hubble discovered galaxy recession phenomenon. By extrapolating this phenomenon into the past, we can calculate the moment when all the matter of the Universe was in a very small volume and its density was incomparably greater than now. During the expansion of the Universe, the wavelength of each quantum increases in proportion to the expansion of the Universe; in this case, the quantum seems to “cool” - after all, the shorter the wavelength of the quantum, the “hotter” it is. Today's centimeter-scale radiation has a brightness temperature of about 3 degrees absolute Kelvin. And ten billion years ago, when the Universe was incomparably smaller and the density of its matter was very high, these quanta had a temperature of about 10 billion degrees. Since then, our Universe has been “buried” with quanta of continuously cooling radiation. That is why the centimeter radio emission “smeared” throughout the Universe is called cosmic microwave background radiation. Relics, as you know, are the names of the remains of the most ancient animals and plants that have survived to this day. Quanta of centimeter radiation are certainly the most ancient of all possible relics. After all, their formation dates back to an era approximately 15 billion years distant from us.

Knowledge about the Universe brought cosmic microwave background radiation

Almost nothing can be said about what matter was like at the zero moment, when its density was infinitely large. But the phenomena and processes that occurred during Universe, just a second after her birth and even earlier, up to 10~8 seconds, scientists already imagine quite well. Information about this was brought precisely cosmic microwave background radiation. So, a second has passed since moment zero. The matter of our Universe had a temperature of 10 billion degrees and consisted of a kind of “porridge” relic quanta, electrodes, positrons, neutrinos and antineutrinos. The density of the “porridge” was enormous - more than a ton per cubic centimeter. In such “crowded conditions,” collisions of neutrons and positrons with electrons continuously occurred, protons turned into neutrons and vice versa. But most of all there were quanta here - 100 million times more than neutrons and protons. Of course, at such a density and temperature, no complex nuclei of matter could exist: they did not decay here. A hundred seconds passed. The expansion of the Universe continued, its density continuously decreased, and its temperature dropped. Positrons almost disappeared, neutrons turned into protons. Education has begun atomic nuclei hydrogen and helium. Calculations carried out by scientists show that 30 percent of the neutrons combined to form helium nuclei, while 70 percent of them remained alone and became hydrogen nuclei. In the course of these reactions, new quanta appeared, but their quantity could no longer be compared with the original one, so we can assume that it did not change at all. The expansion of the Universe continued. The density of the “porridge”, so steeply brewed by nature at the beginning, decreased in proportion to the cube of the linear distance. Years, centuries, millennia passed. 3 million years have passed. The temperature of the “porridge” by this moment had dropped to 3-4 thousand degrees, the density of matter also approached what we know today, but clumps of matter from which stars and galaxies could be formed could not yet arise. The radiation pressure was too great at that time, pushing away any such formation. Even the atoms of helium and hydrogen remained ionized: electrons existed separately, protons and nuclei of atoms also existed separately. Only towards the end of the three-million-year period did the first condensations begin to appear in the cooling “porridge”. At first there were very few of them. As soon as one thousandth of the “porridge” condensed into peculiar protostars, these formations began to “burn” similarly to modern stars. And the photons and energy quanta emitted by them heated the “porridge” that had begun to cool down to temperatures at which the formation of new condensations again turned out to be impossible. Periods of cooling and reheating of the “porridge” by flares of protostars alternated, replacing each other. And at some stage of the expansion of the Universe, the formation of new condensations became almost impossible because the once-so-thick “porridge” had become too “liquefied.” Approximately 5 percent of the matter managed to unite, and 95 percent was scattered in the space of the expanding Universe. This is how the once hot quanta that formed the relict radiation “dissipated”. This is how the nuclei of hydrogen and helium atoms, which were part of the “porridge,” were scattered.

Hypothesis of the formation of the Universe

Here is one of them: most of the matter in our Universe is not located in the composition of planets, stars and galaxies, but forms intergalactic gas - 70 percent hydrogen and 30 percent helium, one hydrogen atom per cubic meter space. Then the development of the Universe passed the stage of protostars and entered the stage of matter that is ordinary for us, ordinary unfolding spiral Galaxies, ordinary stars, the most familiar of which is ours. Planetary systems formed around some of these stars, and on at least one of these planets, life arose, which in the course of evolution gave rise to intelligence. Scientists do not yet know how often stars surrounded by a circle of planets are found in the vastness of space. They can't say anything about how often.
Round dance of the planets. And the question of how often the plant of life blossoms into the lush flower of reason remains open. The hypotheses known to us today that interpret all these issues are more like unfounded guesses. But today science is developing like an avalanche. More recently, scientists had no idea how ours began. The cosmic microwave background radiation, discovered about 70 years ago, made it possible to paint that picture. Today, humanity does not have enough facts, based on which, it can answer the questions formulated above. Penetration into outer space, visits to the Moon and other planets bring new facts. And facts are no longer followed by hypotheses, but by strict conclusions.

CMB radiation indicates the homogeneity of the Universe

What else did the relict rays, these witnesses to the birth of our Universe, tell scientists? A. A. Friedman solved one of the equations given by Einstein, and based on this solution he discovered the expansion of the Universe. In order to solve Einstein's equations, it was necessary to set the so-called initial conditions. Friedman proceeded from the assumption that The universe is homogeneous and isotropic, meaning that the substance in it is distributed evenly. And during the 5-10 years that have passed since Friedman’s discovery, the question of whether this assumption was correct remained open. Now it has essentially been removed. The isotropy of the Universe is evidenced by the amazing uniformity of the relict radio emission. The second fact indicates the same thing - the distribution of the matter of the Universe between Galaxies and intergalactic gas.
After all, intergalactic gas, which makes up the bulk of the matter of the Universe, is distributed throughout it as evenly as relic quanta. The discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation makes it possible to look not only into the ultra-distant past - beyond the limits of time when there was neither our Earth, nor our Sun, nor our Galaxy, nor even the Universe itself. Like an amazing telescope that can be pointed in any direction, the discovery of the CMB allows us to peer into the ultra-distant future. So super-distant, when there will be no Earth, no Sun, no Galaxy. The phenomenon of the expansion of the Universe will help here, how its constituent stars, galaxies, clouds of dust and gas scatter in space. Is this process eternal? Or will the expansion slow down, stop, and then give way to compression? And aren’t the successive compressions and expansions of the Universe a kind of pulsations of matter, indestructible and eternal? The answer to these questions depends primarily on how much matter is contained in the Universe. If its total gravity is sufficient to overcome the inertia of expansion, then the expansion will inevitably give way to compression, during which the Galaxies will gradually come closer together. Well, if the gravitational forces are not enough to slow down and overcome the inertia of expansion, our Universe is doomed: it will dissipate in space! The future fate of our entire Universe! Is there a bigger problem? The study of cosmic microwave background radiation gave science the opportunity to pose it. And it is possible that further research will allow it to be resolved.

In 2006, John Mather and George Smoot were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of the blackbody spectrum and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation. These results were obtained based on measurements made using the COBE satellite launched by NASA in 1988. The results of J. Mather and J. Smoot confirmed the origin of the Universe as a result of the Big Bang. The extremely small difference in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation ΔT/T ~ 10 -4 is evidence of the mechanism of formation of galaxies and stars.

J. Mather (b. 1946)

J. Smoot (b. 1945)

Rice. 52. Blackbody spectrum of cosmic microwave background radiation.

The cosmic microwave background radiation (or cosmic microwave background radiation) was discovered in 1965 by A. Penzias and R. Wilson. At an early stage of the evolution of the Universe, matter was in a plasma state. Such a medium is opaque to electromagnetic radiation; intense scattering of photons by electrons and protons occurs. When the Universe cooled to 3000 K, electrons and protons united into neutral hydrogen atoms and the medium became transparent to photons. At this time, the age of the Universe was 300,000 years, so the cosmic microwave background radiation provides information about the state of the Universe in this era. At this time, the Universe was practically homogeneous. The inhomogeneities of the Universe are determined by the temperature inhomogeneity of the cosmic microwave background radiation. This heterogeneity is ΔT/T ≈ 10 -4 −10 -5. The inhomogeneities of the cosmic microwave background radiation are witnesses of the inhomogeneities of the Universe: the first stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies. With the expansion of the Universe, the wavelength of the CMB increased Δλ/λ = ΔR/R and currently the wavelength of the CMB is in the radio wave range, the temperature of the CMB is T = 2.7 K.

Rice. 53. Anisotropy of cosmic microwave background radiation. Darker colors indicate areas of the CMB spectrum that have a higher temperature.

J. Mather: "In the beginning there was the Big Bang−so we now say with great confidence. The COBE satellite, proposed as a project in 1974 to the National Aeronautics and Research Agency outer space(NASA) and launched in 1989, provided very strong evidence in favor of this: the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR, or cosmic microwave background radiation) has a spectrum of an almost perfect black body with a temperature
2.725 ±0.001 K, and this radiation is isotropic (the same in all directions) with a relative standard deviation of no more than 10 per million at angular scales of 7° or more. This radiation is interpreted as a trace of an extremely hot and dense early stage of the evolution of the Universe. In such a hot and dense phase, the creation and destruction of photons, as well as the establishment of equilibrium between them and with all other forms of matter and energy, would occur very quickly compared to the characteristic time scale of the expansion of the Universe. Such a state would immediately produce blackbody radiation. An expanding Universe must retain the black-body nature of this spectrum, so measuring any significant deviation from the ideal black-body spectrum would either invalidate the whole Big Bang idea or show that some energy was added to the CMB after the rapid establishment of equilibrium (for example, from decay of some primary particles). The fact that this radiation is isotropic to such a high degree is key evidence that it comes from the Big Bang."

Rice. 54. Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias at the antenna where the cosmic microwave background radiation was recorded.

J. Smoot: “According to the theory of the hot Universe, the cosmic microwave background radiation is residual radiation formed at the earliest high-temperature stages of the evolution of the Universe at a time close to the beginning of the expansion of the modern Universe 13.7 billion years ago. The CMB itself can be used as a powerful tool for measuring the dynamics and geometry of the Universe. CMB was discovered by Penzias and Wilson at the Laboratory. Bella in 1964
They discovered constant isotropic radiation with thermodynamic temperature about 3.2 K. At the same time, physicists at Princeton (Dick, Peebles, Wilkinson and Roll) were developing an experiment to measure the cosmic microwave background radiation predicted by the theory of a hot Universe. The accidental discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Penzias and Wilson ushered in a new era in cosmology, marking the beginning of its transformation from myth and speculation into a full-fledged scientific field.
The discovery of the anisotropy of the temperature of the cosmic microwave background revolutionized our understanding of the Universe, and its modern research continue the revolution in cosmology. The construction of the angular power spectrum of CMB temperature fluctuations with plateaus, acoustic peaks and a damped high-frequency end led to the approval of a standard cosmological model in which the geometry of space is flat (corresponding to the critical density), dark energy and dark matter dominate and there is only a little ordinary matter. According to this successfully confirmed model, the observed structure of the Universe was formed by gravitational instability, which amplified quantum fluctuations generated in the very early inflationary era. Current and future observations will test this model and identify key cosmological parameters with outstanding precision and significance."

CMB radiation is background microwave radiation that is the same in all directions and has a spectrum characteristic of a black body at a temperature of ~ 2.7 K.

It is believed that from this radiation one can find out the answer to the question: where did it come from? In fact, the cosmic microwave background radiation is what remains from the “construction of the Universe” when it began to emerge after the expansion of dense hot plasma. To make it easier to understand what cosmic microwave background radiation is, let’s compare it with the remnants human activity. For example, a person invents something, others buy it, use it and throw away waste. So garbage (the very result of human life) is an analogue of cosmic microwave background radiation. You can find out everything from garbage - where a person was at a certain period of time, what he ate, what he was wearing, and even what he was talking about. Also, cosmic microwave background radiation. Based on its properties, scientists are trying to build a picture of the moment big bang, which may provide an answer to the question: how did the Universe appear? But still, the laws of conservation of energy create certain disagreements about the origin of the universe, because nothing comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. The dynamics of our universe are transitions, changes in properties and states. This can be observed even on our planet. For example, ball lightning appears in a cloud of water particles?! How? How can this be? No one can explain the origin of certain laws. There are only moments of the discovery of these laws, just like the history of the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation.

Historical facts about the study of cosmic microwave background radiation

CMB was first mentioned by Georgiy Antonovich Gamow (George Gamow) when he tried to explain the big bang theory. He assumed that some residual radiation filled the space of an ever-expanding universe. In 1941, while studying the absorption of one of the stars in the Ophiuchus cluster, Andrew McKellar noticed spectral absorption lines of light that corresponded to a temperature of 2.7 K. In 1948, Georgi Gamow, Ralph Alfert and Robert Herman established the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation at 5 K. Later Georgy Gamow suggested a temperature less than the known one of 3 K. But this was only a superficial study of this, at that time no one knew known fact. In the early 60s, Robert Dicke and Yakov Zeldovich obtained the same results as Gamow by recording waves whose radiation intensity did not depend on time. The inquisitive minds of scientists had to create a special radio telescope to more accurately record the cosmic microwave background radiation. In the early 80s, with the development of the space industry, cosmic microwave background radiation began to be studied more carefully from on board spacecraft. It was possible to establish the isotropy property of the cosmic microwave background radiation (the same properties in all directions, for example, 5 steps to the north in 10 seconds and 5 steps to the south in 10 seconds). Today, studies of the properties of the relic study and the history of its occurrence continue.

What properties does relict radiation have?

CMB spectrum from data obtained using the FIRAS instrument on board the COBE satellite

The spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation is 2.75 Kelvin, which is similar to soot cooled to this temperature. Such a substance always absorbs radiation (light) incident on it, no matter how you influence it. At least stick it in a magnetic coil, at least nuclear bomb throw it, even shine it with a spotlight. Such a body also emits little radiation. But this only proves the fact that nothing is absolute. You can always deduce an ideal law indefinitely, achieve the maximum of a certain property of something, but a small amount of inertia will always remain.

Interesting facts related to the study of cosmic microwave background radiation

The maximum frequency of the cosmic microwave background radiation was recorded at 160.4 GHz, which is equal to a 1.9 mm wave. And the density of such radiation is 400-500 photons per cm 3. CMB radiation is the oldest, most ancient radiation that can be observed in general in the universe. Each particle took 400,000 years to reach Earth. Not kilometers, but years! According to satellite observations and mathematical calculations, the cosmic microwave background radiation seems to stand still, and all galaxies and constellations move relative to it at enormous speeds, on the order of hundreds of kilometers per second. It's like watching a moving train through the window. The temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation in the direction of the constellation is 0.1% higher, and in the opposite direction it is 0.1% lower. This explains the movement of the Sun towards this constellation relative to the relict background.

What does the study of cosmic microwave background radiation give us?

The early Universe was cold, very cold. Why was the universe so cold, and what happened when the expansion of the universe began? It can be assumed that due to the big bang, a huge amount of clumps of energy were released outside the universe, then the Universe cooled down, almost froze, but over time, the energy began to gather into clumps again, and a certain reaction arose, which launched the process of expansion of the universe. Then where does dark matter come from and does it interact with the cosmic microwave background radiation? Perhaps the cosmic microwave background radiation is the result of the decomposition of dark matter, which is more logical than the residual radiation of the big bang. Since dark energy can be antimatter and particles of dark matter, colliding with particles of matter, form radiation in the material and antimaterial world, similar to relict radiation. Today, this is the most recent, unexplored area of ​​science in which one can achieve success and be imprinted in the history of science and society.