Penzias and Wilson

This lucky duo accidentally discovered cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation – the leftover heat from the Big Bang, the Universe’s fiery origin.

Did you know? The Holmdel Horn Antenna, which detected the CMB radiation, is now a National Historic Landmark.

of the Universe ’ s EXPLOSIVE BIRTH The astronomers who heard the echo

The Holmdel Horn Antenna picked up a mysterious background noise, which came from space wherever the device was pointed.

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. 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.

Almost at the same time Penzias and Wilson made their discovery, physicist Robert Dicke predicted that if the BIG BANG – the theory that the Universe began from a big explosion – had indeed occurred, then trace amounts of leftover heat radiation would exist throughout the Universe. When Penzias and Wilson heard of his prediction, they realized the significance of their discovery.

The Big Bang produced an incredible amount of heat energy, traces of which can still be detected as microwave radiation. Map of CMB created from data gathered by a space probe The red parts are the hottest and the blue parts are the coldest.

By the way... After ruling out radio noise from nearby cities, we thought the static sound was caused by bird droppings in the antenna.

What came after...

In 1989, the cosmic Background exPlorer (coBe) satellite was launched. It studied CMB and its findings provided important evidence to support the Big Bang theory.

Legacy

The radiation was interpreted as CMB, and was the first real evidence of the Big Bang. Space probes have now gathered MORE DATA ABOUT CMB, which has helped scientists make key observations about the Universe, including estimating its age and trying to understand how its structure was formed.

How they changed the world Penzias and Wilson’s Nobel Prizewinning discovery transformed our understanding of space, allowing astronomers to study the age of the Universe, its shape, and composition.

From 2009 to 2013, the Planck sPacecraft studied CMB in greater detail than ever before.

The resulting map suggested that the Universe came into existence 13.82 billion years ago.