Massive Arecibo Study Subtracts The Galaxy; Reveals A Pristine Universe (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hideout, every word also a mask.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

If you want to see all the way back to the Big Bang — to the cosmic microwave background — that means looking back through billions of light years worth of space. While individual point sources like stars and distant galaxies are relatively easy to exclude, the most catastrophic interfering factor is the Milky Way itself. Gas, dust, spinning molecules, magnetic fields, stars and more are all known to play a role.

The alignment of neutral hydrogen (white lines) with the polarization data from the CMB (gradients) is an inexplicable surprise, unless there’s an additional galactic foreground. Image credit: Clark et al., Physical Review Letters, Volume 115, Issue 24, id.241302 (2015).

But a couple of large mysteries ensued when we looked at the neutral hydrogen within our own galaxy: the neutral hydrogen was aligned with the galactic magnetic field, and is also associated with the polarization of the CMB. But neither of those sources should affect neutral hydrogen. What’s going on?

The current models of galactic (and other) foregrounds along with the cosmic microwave background. The latest results indicate that free-free scattering (from free electrons) has been modeled insufficiently. Image credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration.

It turns out we might not have modeled the galaxy correctly after all, and this could mean everything for understanding what our Universe was truly like when it was first born!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2iFiUey

“Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hideout, every word also a mask.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

If you want to see all the way back to the Big Bang — to the cosmic microwave background — that means looking back through billions of light years worth of space. While individual point sources like stars and distant galaxies are relatively easy to exclude, the most catastrophic interfering factor is the Milky Way itself. Gas, dust, spinning molecules, magnetic fields, stars and more are all known to play a role.

The alignment of neutral hydrogen (white lines) with the polarization data from the CMB (gradients) is an inexplicable surprise, unless there’s an additional galactic foreground. Image credit: Clark et al., Physical Review Letters, Volume 115, Issue 24, id.241302 (2015).

But a couple of large mysteries ensued when we looked at the neutral hydrogen within our own galaxy: the neutral hydrogen was aligned with the galactic magnetic field, and is also associated with the polarization of the CMB. But neither of those sources should affect neutral hydrogen. What’s going on?

The current models of galactic (and other) foregrounds along with the cosmic microwave background. The latest results indicate that free-free scattering (from free electrons) has been modeled insufficiently. Image credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration.

It turns out we might not have modeled the galaxy correctly after all, and this could mean everything for understanding what our Universe was truly like when it was first born!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2iFiUey