The sheer scale of the universe makes it difficult to represent in an image. But using a logarithmic scale makes for a useful representation.
In the Beginning
The big bang really happened, despite claims in the popular press.
Pruning the Tree
The latest Planck data has narrowed the possibilities for cosmic inflation.
Second Light
The period between the end of the big bang and the appearance of the first stars is known as the cosmic dark ages. It lasted longer than we thought.
Dust Yourself Off
The press is announcing that BICEP2 results have been disproven. Actually the results are a bit more subtle.
Everything’s Fine, Situation Normal
More results from the Planck collaboration are coming in, this time from conference in Italy. There’s been a lot of excitement building up to this new release, particularly given some of the unresolved issues in the standard model of cosmology.
It’s What’s For Dinner
A new paper in Physical Review Letters has led to popular science headlines wondering “Is dark energy eating dark matter?” but that’s not what the paper claims at all.
Nine Skies
This month Astronomy & Astrophysics released 31 articles on data gathered by the Planck satellite. This includes nine all-sky surveys at a range of wavelengths from radio to infrared. It represents the most detailed map of the cosmic sky to date, and already there are some interesting results.
It’s Not Nothing
Polarization in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is in the news again. This time with new results from a project known as POLARBEAR. The results were published this week in the Astrophysical Journal, and it swings the observational needle back towards the existence of cosmic inflation.