The Nobel Prize in physics went to two Americans for their work that lent support to the Big Bang Theory. Here is a bit from National Geographic:
Studying the Background
Mather and Smoot had lead responsibilities for several of the most important experiments conducted by the COBE satellite, which was launched in November 1989 to help study the universe's cosmic microwave background radiation.
Background radiation is left over from the earliest phase of the universe. A mere 400,000 years after the universe formed in a violent explosion known as the big bang, it began to emit radiation as it cooled from an extremely hot and dense state.
Using COBE data, Mather and Smoot were able to precisely detail the nature of the microwave radiation. They verified that the radiation had a special "blackbody" spectrum, as predicted by big bang theory.
Blackbody radiation is the name given to radiation emitted by a rare type of object. The spectrum of such radiation across various wavelengths (colors) of light is dependent solely on temperature.
"The COBE results provided increased support for the big bang scenario for the origin of the Universe, as this is the only scenario that predicts the kind of cosmic microwave background radiation measured by COBE," according to a news release from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the physics prize.
This is all very cool, and I love when science finds ways to test out its biggest theories. But . . . .
For me, the real mystery isn't whether or not the Big Bang went boom, but WHY. When someone solves that mystery, that will be worthy of a prize.
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