Paris, Oct 11: The cosmos is not just big, it is remarkably flat, according to scientists who say they have carried out the most accurate measurement of the backwash of microwave radiation left from the big bang which created the universe. The data was collected by instruments aboard a balloon which was sent up into the stratosphere last February from Kiruna, Sweden, French members of the US-European team said yesterday.
The figures confirm suspicions that the universe is "spatially flat on a wide scale" and add flesh to the theory that the universe was created by a gigantic explosion, a statement by the National Centre for Scientific Research (NCSR) said. The research project, Archeops, is a trial run for a future European Space Agency (ESA) satellite, Planck, which is due to be launched in 2007 with the goal of drawing up a map of big bang radiation that should shed new light on the early universe.
Astronomers believe the big bang happened between about 12 and 15 billion years ago. Bureau Report