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Cosmic microwaves

Cosmology, the study of the universe, has benefited over the last 10 years from mathematical modelling and observational data from satellites, helping to transform the ‘Big Bang theory’ to the more mature ‘standard model of the universe’. This article follows the story from the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation to the latest measurements from the Planck satellite

Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson with their horn antenna in the background

The terms in bold link to topics in the AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA A-level specifications, as well as the IB, Pre-U and SQA exam specifications.

The universe is full of electromagnetic radiation, now in the microwave region, left over from the Big Bang origin of the universe. Its existence verifies the Big Bang theory. The radiation obeys Planck’s law and his theory of radiation, and its wavelength is related to the temperature of space.

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