Fact Sheet
Cosmic Background Radiation
Before stars and galaxies formed, the structure of our universe looked like this: a lumpy cauldron of matter and energy. This structure is still visible as a background "glow" that permeates the entire universe. The Cosmic Background Explorer spacecraft recorded this glow, which is visible only to sensitive microwave detectors, during a four-year mission. Red and blue features in the image represent areas of greater or lesser density from which galaxies and galaxy clusters later formed. But the scale of this view is truly enormous: the largest clusters and superclusters of galaxies would be smaller than the tiniest feature visible in the COBE image.
|