We Bathe Always in the Glow of the Big Bang - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/we-bathe-always-in-the-glow-of-the-big-bang
A map of the cosmic microwave background from the COBE satellite.NASAIt was born when the Universe was just 10 human heartbeats old. A small burst of electromagnetic energy known as a photon. A primordial particle of light. At that time the Universe was a blazing hot mix of ionized hydrogen and helium, a sea of positively charged nuclei and electrons at full boil. This sea was so hot and dense that the photon was constantly scattered, or bounced around between them, never traveling far between. For 380,000 years, the light was scattered as the Universe cooled, until finally ions and electrons slowed down enough to combine into hydrogen and helium. These atoms didn’t scatter the photon much, and so the photon was finally free—free to begin a very long journey. Although it had cooled (...)