Cosmic Anniversary: 'Big Bang Echo' Discovered 50 Years Ago Today {2014}
Humanity's understanding of the universe took a giant leap forward 50 years ago today.
On May 20, 1964, American radio astronomers Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias discovered the
cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the ancient light that began saturating the universe 380,000 years after its creation. And they did so pretty much by accident.
Bell Labs' Holmdale Horn Antenna in New Jersey picked up an odd buzzing sound that came from all parts of the sky at all times. The noise puzzled Wilson and Penzias, who did their best to eliminate all possible sources of interference, even removing some pigeons that were nesting in the antenna. [
CMB: Big Bang Relic Explained (Infographic)]
"When we first heard that inexplicable 'hum,' we didn’t understand its significance, and we never dreamed it would be connected to the
origins of the universe," Penzias said in a statement. "It wasn’t until we exhausted every possible explanation for the sound's origin that we realized we had stumbled upon something big."
And it was indeed big. Penzias and Wilson had spotted the CMB, the predicted thermal echo of the universe's explosive birth. The landmark find put the
Big Bang theory on solid ground, suggesting that the cosmos did indeed grow from a tiny seed — a single point — about 13.8 billion years ago.
Looks like you are 50 years behind the factoids brother.