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This lucky duo accidentally discovered cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation – the leftover heat from the Big Bang, the Universe’s fiery origin.
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Static in space Arno Penzias met Robert Woodrow Wilson at BELL LABORATORIES in New Jersey, USA, where they worked as radio astronomers (astronomers looking for radio waves from space). In 1965, they were using a giant horn antenna to detect microwave radiation – an invisible form of light – from space. When they turned it to the edge of the Milky Way, they were puzzled to hear a strange background noise that sounded like radio static.
Who came before... In 1917, Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter applied Einstein’s general theory of relativity to his study of space, and proposed a Universe that was curved and constantly expanding. 94
In 1931, French priest and astronomer GeorGeS lemaître suggested that the Universe expanded from a single particle called the Primeval Atom – an event that we now call the Big Bang.