Back to the Bang

Scientists believe the Big Bang occurred because of an observed “cosmological background radiation” seen in all directions from the vantage point of Earth. Since June, 2001, a space-based instrumented observation platform called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has been collecting data that allows scientists to literally look back in time and space to virtually witness the birth of the universe.

In the video below, you will see a journey back through space/time starting from the WMAP probe in it’s orbit and continuing outward past Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn, through the Oort cloud and into interstellar space. The journey continues through a “local” nebula in Orion and thence out of the Milky Way and past thousands of galaxies back into the time of primordial blue giant stars and ultimately past the “dark ages” and into the afterglow of the Big Bang. Then, brilliant light and, finally, darkness at “before the beginning of time.”

Please take this thrilling journey back to the beginning of time: (press to play)

Some history about WMAP:

WMAP was launched on June 30, 2001 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base aboard a Delta II rocket.

WMAP completed its prime 2 years of mission operations in its L2 orbit by September 2003. Meanwhile, the 2002 and 2004 Astronomy and Physics Senior Review granted WMAP mission extensions, endorsing the proposed 8-years of mission operations, to end September 2009.

In February 2003 the WMAP Team released a set of 13 papers (241 journal pages) along with flight data from the first year of observations of the CMB. In March 2006, the WMAP Team released 3-year data, including full polarization data, and papers describing the data processing, systematic error analyses, calibration, and other critical aspects of the experiment.

And, finally, a schematic diagram of the trip you just took back over more than thirteen and a half billion years in about a minute!

Schematic of the cosmic chronology

Images and video courtesy of NASA