Word: bangs
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...look for that same signal. Astronomers had known since the 1920s that the galaxies were flying apart. But theorists had belatedly realized a key implication: the whole cosmos must at one point have been much smaller and hotter. About 300,000 years after the instant of the Big Bang, the entire visible universe would have been a cloud of hot, incredibly dense gas, not much bigger than the Milky Way is now, glowing white hot like a blast furnace or the surface of a star. Because this cosmic glow had no place to go, it must still be there, albeit...
...discovery of the cosmic-microwave background radiation convinced scientists that the universe really had sprung from an initial Big Bang some 15 billion years ago. They immediately set out to learn more. For one thing, they began trying to probe this cosmic afterglow for subtle variations in intensity. It's clear through ordinary telescopes that matter isn't spread evenly throughout the modern universe. Galaxies tend to huddle relatively close to one another, dozens or even hundreds of them in clumps known as clusters and superclusters. In between, there is essentially nothing...
...make a 3-D map of the cosmos, is far from complete, but scientists reported at the American Astronomical Society's spring meeting in Pasadena, Calif., that it is clearer than ever that galaxies cluster together into huge clumps that reflect conditions that existed soon after the Big Bang...
...themselves will disintegrate into stray particles, which will bind loosely to form individual "atoms" larger than the size of today's universe. Eventually, even these will decay, leaving a featureless, infinitely large void. And that will be that--unless, of course, whatever inconceivable event that launched the original Big Bang should recur, and the ultimate free lunch is served once more...
...ARNO PENZIAS AND ROBERT WILSON when: 1965 what they did: Accidentally detected the leftover glow from the Big Bang ? which astronomers are now deciphering to learn the composition and ultimate fate of the cosmos...