by Stavros Mouslopoulos and Anastasia Joyce
What's pigeon pooh got to do with the birth of the universe?
In 1965 two US based radio-astronomers from Bell Laboratories, New Jersey were attempting to use microwaves to map spaces between galaxies. The efforts of the two scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, kept on being held up by "static" noises interfering with signals to their antenna.
The source of the noise, they thought, were the pigeons roosting on the antenna and leaving droppings. So the two young radio-astronomers spent hours searching for and cleaning up pigeon pooh. The result a clean antenna but the noise stayed.
They finally discovered the faint static backgound noise they had heard was actually cosmic in origin. Now called Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation this discovery earnt them the Nobel Prize for Physics (1978).
CMB is a remnant of the Big Bang. It is perhaps the most precious, though useless object within the Cosmos. It is a form of electromagnetic radiation which fills up every spot in the universe. However it seems to have no relationship to any star, galaxy or other object.
This radiation from the Big Bang is a cosmic soup travelling constantly in all directions of the universe. Its temperature, which produces microwaves, is a measure of the size and age of the universe. Currently it is 2.725 K (K = Kelvin) or -270 degrees Celsius. As the universe expands the temperature lowers. Therefore its temperature is a measure of the size and age of the universe.
CMB is not visible to the naked eye. However...
If you turn on a traditional analog TV (not digital), have an antenna and no other environmental electromagentic noise (computer, power line, electric motor interference etc) you might be able watch the Big Bang on the TV as it ripples through the universe. CMB radiation appears as that useless snow or fuzz in between channels, or when the channel is "off air". You may however be unable to pick up CMB. In which case you'll have to contend with watching the interaction of the solar wind with the earth's magnetic field. It also looks fuzzy and useless.