Cosmic Background Radiation

             

Discovered in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, the cosmic background radiation, a relatively homogenious (if you factor in the earth's movement, it is the same relatively in all directions, all over the sky) microwave "noise" that is thought to be the dawning light of the universe when it first cooled enough, 300,000 years after the Big Bang, to allow light to travel. (Before it was 300000 years old the cosmus was still too hot, too dense and energetic, to allow light to travel any distance - it was opaque.)

The background radiation is thought to reflect, to represent, the state of the universe at that time - to reflect its texture. Were it truely homogenious, cosmologists would have a hard time explaning the clumpiness of the universe; its stars, galaxies, galactic clusters and superclusters: but infact fine analysis reveals that tghe background radiation is textured, and textured appropriately (see "notes" in the cosmic background radiation).