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See the original image at space.newscientist.com

Astronomers measure temperature - 11 billion years ago

space.newscientist.com — We cannot go back in time and stick a thermometer in the early universe, but astronomers have done the next best thing, using an indirect technique to find out what the universe's temperature

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  • zplot, on 05/16/2008, -3/+10"The astronomers arrived at their figure by a very indirect route. What they actually measured was the temperature of carbon monoxide gas in a galaxy about 11 billion light years away." Carbon monoxide is is now up one more point on the coolness meter.
    • macweirdo42, on 05/16/2008, -0/+2One of the few times we'll get a news story about carbon monoxide that isn't horrible.
  • foxhaze, on 05/16/2008, -11/+4If Jesus had wanted us to know the temperature of the universe when he made it...
    • inditech, on 05/16/2008, -4/+13...he would have existed
      • GiggleStick, on 05/16/2008, -9/+1You don't think Jesus existed? I understand not thinking he was the son of God and all, but that he never existed?

        Do you believe in Julius Caesar? How about Mohamed? Thomas Jefferson?
        • nicksauce, on 05/16/2008, -0/+9You would think in a time when history was well-recorded that if there was some guy going around performing miracles and gaining a mass following it would have been well-documented right? What do we find?

          “Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.” John E. Remsburg, "The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence'
  • BassJunkie, on 05/16/2008, -2/+5So they've made an educated guess about something....not like anyone's gonna step forward and say "well actually it was a tad warmer then that mate!"
    • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -1/+1They've made an observational statement - that a mass of CO was a particular temperature.

      The article made the claim that such was the universe's temperature. I'll bet there were warmer and cooler spots. I'll similarly lay money that in that 11 billion light year bubble, the average temperature is likely different from that of the cloud.

      But that's journalism for you - despite even the best intentions, the author is likely to get at least one thing wrong.
  • krewl, on 05/16/2008, -1/+23"Bend over, while I stick this thermometer in your black hole"
    • jscrew, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1The temperature of the universe was obtained by sticking the thermometer in Uranus.
  • TheZorch, on 05/16/2008, -1/+4Using this method makes a lot of sense. The further way you look into space the further back in time you are looking due to the speed of light.
    • iloveazngurlzs, on 05/16/2008, -1/+2where the ***** is the center that we measure from then? Unless we are ignorant enough to still believe we are the center of the universe then...... then how to you figure we go about going further into space?does anyone know where the middle is? or which way space is expanding? yea its going out, but how do we know which way out is?
      • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -0/+11) We don't know
        2) 'Into space' is a colloquialism for 'Away from earth'. Yes, it's an anthropic. No, there's usually not a problem with that in this case.
        3) No.
        4) Out.
        5) There's no way to tell until we can observe the edge of the universe's expansion. Presently, the universe is red-shifted pretty homogeneously in all directions, so no indicators there as to which direction is 'in'.
        • iloveazngurlzs, on 05/16/2008, -2/+1Here:

          Q: How do we measure the temprature of something 11 billion years ago?
          A: We don't. We just pretend like we know what we are doing.
        • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -0/+4A: We measure the absorption spectra of a cloud that is 11 billion light years away.

          There's quite a lot of bandwidth and redundancy in absorption spectra; not a lot of it is lost in an 11 billion year trip, unless an object, like a star or plant gets in the way. If all you're after is a temperature, it's a quite reliable measure.

          Even then, you can usually just wait until it moves out of the way.

          Anyway, your lack of scientific understanding is kind of annoying.

          Q: How do we criticize a subject without actually addressing the facts of it?
          A: We don't. We just pretend we're smarter and disagree.
      • nicksauce, on 05/16/2008, -0/+4If I look at a galaxy 1 billion light years away, I am looking 1 billion years back in time. If an observer in that galaxy looked at our galaxy he would be looking 1 billion years back in time.

        To answer which was space is expanding, the answer is no particular direction. Imagine blowing up a balloon, sure it's expanding, but it's not expanding in any particular direction.

        Does that help?
  • ZincSaucier, on 05/16/2008, -3/+8And they still can't measure one week in advance if it's gonna be sunny, or if a cyclone is gonna kill everyone
    • macweirdo42, on 05/16/2008, -2/+3I can tell you that two months from now, it's incredibly likely to be hot as hell.
    • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1Not so much if you live in, say, Argentina.
  • buffyangel108, on 05/16/2008, -9/+8You call THAT an indirect technique? THIS is an indirect technique:

    God created the Universe. An apple pie bakes at 33C. Thus, the Universe was 490C 11 billion years ago. Simple!
    • specialK16, on 05/16/2008, -2/+2No need to start a flaming against religion.
    • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1No, that's a non sequitur. An indirect technique for measuring temperature is done measuring the absorption spectra that comes off a substance, and comparing it to the absorption spectra of known compounds, compensating for red/blue shift, and determining the necessary transformations for obtaining said spectra.
  • firaatje, on 05/16/2008, -4/+0Thanks for the news.
    I love interesting storys like that.
    After all, it is history!
    Let's be friends:)
  • hollyminkowski, on 05/16/2008, -0/+3Cosmologists come up with the strangest things...how do they figure this stuff out? :-)
    • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -0/+3Optic physics was an awesome and terribly useful development for astronomy and cosmology. Credit where credit's due. This was a brilliant deduction and all, but like all science, it was built on the shoulders of giants.
    • nicksauce, on 05/16/2008, -1/+3SCIENCE
  • republicker, on 05/16/2008, -6/+2LOL
  • verkon, on 05/16/2008, -1/+3How about a way to measure the temperature tomorrow?
  • whalt, on 05/16/2008, -1/+3You know what the difference is between the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and a rectal thermometer?

    The taste.
  • krazy9000, on 05/16/2008, -5/+3Did anyone think to ask the simple question of "HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU MEASURE THE TEMPERATURE OF A GAS THAT'S 11 BILLION LIGHT YEARS AWAY?"
    • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -0/+3It's answered in the article. Dear gods, you'd think you'd at least read it before laying out a criticism thereof.
  • Princeamor, on 05/16/2008, -6/+3That's ridiculous! No matter how advanced science is getting or will be there will NEVER be a way to know the temperature 11 BILLION years ago!
    • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -0/+2The farther you look out into the sky, the farther back in time you can see. The quasar light we're observing passes through clouds of CO that are 11 billion light years away. Their absorption spectrum tells their temperature.

      Now, whether this was the homogeneous temperature at the time is up for debate, but there's no question about the temperature of those clouds at that time.
    • smek2, on 05/17/2008, -0/+2I hope you are just being sarcastic there. I wrote a similar comment meant to be sarcastic, but i'm not so sure about yours.
  • iloveazngurlzs, on 05/16/2008, -1/+2"The team used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) array in Paranal, Chile"

    A VLT? I wonder how it compares to my BAT (bad ass telescope)
  • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1Quick, possibly stupid question:
    What happens to light that hits the edge of the universe?

    If the universe (space) is defined by its contents, then space expands as light pushes its boundaries.

    If the nature of the universe is that its schwartzchild radius is less than its extent, light will bend back and never escape*, and as a result much of what is visible is a gravitic reflection. Universal mass would need to be quite high for this to be true, and as most of the universe is empty space, I doubt it is.

    On a tangent, is degenerate matter a bose einstien condensate (that is, a large object acting as a single quanta)? Can it exist in superposition?

    Lastly, GODDAMNIT, why is this comment box freaking out?! I had to drop into a text editor to finish writing it!
    • smek2, on 05/17/2008, -0/+2"What happens to light that hits the edge of the universe?" -- it doesn't. Because space is expanding exponetially and a lot faster than light can travel. And Light doesn't "push" the universe boundaries. In fact science is still puzzled over the fact that the universe is expanding, and even accelerating doing so. That's why there are parts of the universe we never ever will see. We are in a sense causally decoupled from these parts. And there's no such thing as "empty space" in the universe. Even in vacuum there are tiny energy fluctuations. Not to mention dark energy.
  • JimmySpaza, on 05/16/2008, -11/+1You do realize that the conclusions in this article are built upon assumptions which themselves are built upon assumptions.

    For example, it is assumed that the universe was once the size of a dime, the singularity. And that ALL time and space was enclosed in this singularity. It is assumed this because someone first postulated the idea that light coming to us from what we ASSUME are objects at the edge of the universe has been shifted on the visual spectrum slightly away from what it would normally be if not expanding.

    The Cosmic Background Radiation (CMR) is ASSUMED to have come from the Big Bang explosion. There is a major problem here however. If the boundaries of time and space (the edge of the universe) is still expanding at the speed of light, then wouldn't this CMR still be expanding with it? What happened to cause the CMR to bounce back to us on earth?

    Something is amiss.

    And when too many people start asking these questions, the scientists that promote the Big Bang theory merely state that we, the ones asking, are not educated enough to understand. Intellectual arrogance covering up the holes in the theory.
    • riskybeats, on 05/16/2008, -1/+7Once again, just because you don't understand it and are not educated enough to get it doesn't mean the scientists are. These are based upon tested theories that work, and form a framework for which they can test these new hypothesuses and such. Stop promoting your stupid ID ***** with misinformed comments.
      • JimmySpaza, on 05/16/2008, -6/+1Once again, we see the supporters of the Big Bang theory THEMSELVES don't have a clue and merely parrot the line that they are been taught.

        Notice how RISKYBEATS didn't refute or comment on any of the particulars of the Big Bang theory such as CMR or the expanding boundary of the universe. He simply whined because someone was asking questions and point out theoretical problems with the theory.

        ...and that's all I did...ask questions about the theory and point out problems with the theory.

        ...and that's all RISKYBEATS did...complain that I was asking questions and told me to simply believe whatever I have been taught.
        • riskybeats, on 05/16/2008, -1/+7I wasn't trying to answer any of the questions you posed, I was just pointing out the problems with how you attacked the article and science in general. If you want someone defending it, go look at nicksauce's reply. I am just concerned with people attacking science without fully understanding it, and saying,"Ah ha! Sure we have tonnes of evidence in support of this theory, but it is just a 'theory'(!!)", without fully understanding what a theory means in scientific context.
          I don't give a ***** what you believe in, but don't try to undermine science. If you want to be critical, go ahead, but research about it first or else you will just start looking like an blathering idiot.

          http://www.pibburns.com/augustin.htm
        • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -1/+8 I won't bother listing the logical fallacies you normally leave in your posts, as a sort of verification of your argument; they're not relevant to my current topic, which is your behavior on Digg, as I've observed, and the reasons you don't get your questions answered.

          James, you're seen as a troll. Specifically, you've shown yourself to be skeptical of even the most definitive evidence, hostile to science, closed to opposing opinions, and pointedly ignorant of terminology (scientific 'theory' = colloquial 'fact').

          It's really no wonder people won't answer your questions. I'll often give it a go, when I know I've got an answer that I can explain in relatively simple terms - but it always seems futile to explain anything to you when you're so determined to be 'right', without regard to being correct.

          In short, you'll find that most people give no regard to those who merit no respect.

          It's nothing personal, but you don't carry yourself as someone who's filled with intellectual curiosity; you come across more as someone who has a personal philosophical agenda that you need to validate by making as many other people believe it as you can. That's not the way to obtain quality information.
    • nicksauce, on 05/16/2008, -1/+6"For example, it is assumed that the universe was once the size of a dime, the singularity. And that ALL time and space was enclosed in this singularity. It is assumed this because someone first postulated the idea that light coming to us from what we ASSUME are objects at the edge of the universe has been shifted on the visual spectrum slightly away from what it would normally be if not expanding."

      So what mechanism do you propose to explain the redshift? The nobel prize is awaiting... Hopefully your model will also accurately predict the abundance of hydrogen and helium in the universe like the big bang model does. PS Goddidit is not a scientific model.

      "The Cosmic Background Radiation (CMR) is ASSUMED to have come from the Big Bang explosion. There is a major problem here however. If the boundaries of time and space (the edge of the universe) is still expanding at the speed of light, then wouldn't this CMR still be expanding with it? What happened to cause the CMR to bounce back to us on earth?"

      It is expanding... the photons are being stretched as the universe expands, hence the redshift in the CMB.

      If you are interested in asking questions so that you can understand the theory, I suggest you go to physicsforums.com and get some answers from professional cosmologists. They won't be "intelluctually arrogant". However, if you are interetested in preserving your dogma, I suggest you don't go there.
      • JimmySpaza, on 05/17/2008, -3/+1So, in essence, YOU don't know. All you yourself know is what these websites that you referenced tell you. Thanks for making my point. :-)
        • Fordi, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2You didn't make a point. Discounting the veracity of a website's information doesn't invalidate it.

          Essentially, you ask for references on the internet, then discount those references as websites. You don't see your problem?
    • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -1/+7Um... CMR is one of the predictions of the Big Bang theory. It was predicted in the late 1940's and *confirmed* in the mid 1960's. I'll explain.

      The big bang happened. At this point, the universe was composed of a plasma of photons, electrons, and baryons (protons, neutrons, and other quark-composed matter). These were constantly interacting with one another, as matter at plasma temperatures is highly charged.

      As everything expanded, this plasma cooled, and around 380,000 years after the bang, atoms began to form, and the photons stopped interacting, as the charges of the surrounding matter were now all coupled. This means there was a 380,000 light year radius sphere filled with scattered photons traveling in all directions. We exist within this 380,000 light-year bubble, and so we should be able to observe fairly constant radiation coming from all directions.

      Overall, you should probably, you know, research something before talking about it. I know about CMBR because I was curious about it around ten years ago, when I was finishing up high school. Hell, even the Wikipedia article on Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation has enough information to collect what I just explained.

      Overall, Jimmy, you do a lot of this: claiming that most of science exists based on assumption. It doesn't. The only assumption in scientific practice is that we, as a human species, are not all insane, and that our observations can be trusted to be as we observe them. If that assumption is wrong, then we're all screwed anyway.

      Anyway, I really wish you would stop; your brand of misinformation causes a lot of people to ignore science as some sort of alchemy. It's not; it's a deterministic way of learning about the environment in which we have no choice but to live. Reality is a lovely thing; it'd be nice if you didn't try to convince others that it's not real.
      • Fordi, on 05/16/2008, -1/+4You disappoint me, James. You asked a question, and for once you got a solid answer, rather than being ignored or ridiculed. Will you not partake in a rational discussion, or are you only interested in starting and maintaining a flame war?
        • JimmySpaza, on 05/17/2008, -4/+1When someone answers my questions, as opposed to name calling or repeating the same scientific conclusions, then I'll debate.

          Notice how no one here seems to know the rationale for the various aspects of the Big Bang theory. They only know what some website tells them. You don't see this as a problem?
        • riskybeats, on 05/17/2008, -1/+3You want people to answer your questions, when you could easily go research them yourself. You say we don't explain every, single, process which leads up to these conclusions we claim, when you could easily yourself go see how scientists get to the conclusion, although it might actually mean having to think and be knowledgeable on the subject.

          But you say, "They only know what some website tells them". Not only are almost all scientific subjects under extremely close peer review and constant testing to insure it is correct, let's re-word that to, "They only believe what some book tells them". Kind of like the bible, non? You are right that everyone should think and be critical, but you should follow your own advice.
      • JimmySpaza, on 05/17/2008, -3/+1"The big bang happened. At this point, the universe was composed of a plasma of photons, electrons, and baryons (protons, neutrons, and other quark-composed matter). These were constantly interacting with one another, as matter at plasma temperatures is highly charged."

        How do you know?

        "As everything expanded, this plasma cooled, and around 380,000 years after the bang, atoms began to form,"

        Please provide rationale and scientifically verifiable evidence for the 380,000 year figure.

        "and the photons stopped interacting, as the charges of the surrounding matter were now all coupled. This means there was a 380,000 light year radius sphere filled with scattered photons traveling in all directions. We exist within this 380,000 light-year bubble, and so we should be able to observe fairly constant radiation coming from all directions."

        Why? Radiation reflects off most objects, yes? Are you saying that CBR reflects off the edge of the universe and comes back to us?

        "Overall, you should probably, you know, research something before talking about it. I know about CMBR because I was curious about it around ten years ago, when I was finishing up high school. Hell, even the Wikipedia article on Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation has enough information to collect what I just explained."

        Wrong. It doesn't give the rationale for such. It only tells you the conclusions.

        "Overall, Jimmy, you do a lot of this: claiming that most of science exists based on assumption. It doesn't. The only assumption in scientific practice is that we, as a human species, are not all insane, and that our observations can be trusted to be as we observe them. If that assumption is wrong, then we're all screwed anyway."

        Hey, I'm just looking for the REASONS behind the conclusions. And all I keep getting from Digg users is the conclusions only...as if THEY themselves don't know why.

        "Anyway, I really wish you would stop; your brand of misinformation causes a lot of people to ignore science as some sort of alchemy. It's not; it's a deterministic way of learning about the environment in which we have no choice but to live. Reality is a lovely thing; it'd be nice if you didn't try to convince others that it's not real."

        Still waiting for the reasons WHY you believe what you believe.
        • Fordi, on 05/17/2008, -1/+4>"The big bang happened. [further explanation of the CMBR preditction of Big Bang theory]"

          "How do you know?"

          I don't need to; I'm explaining a prediction made by a theory, not stating what happened.

          >"As everything expanded, this plasma cooled, and around 380,000 years after the bang, atoms began to form,"

          "Please provide rationale and scientifically verifiable evidence for the 380,000 year figure."

          The rationale is mathematical; the estimated value of matter and energy of the universe in 1948 compressed down into a sphere with radius of less than 400,000 light years gives us the temperature that above which you have plasma and below which you have gas. The 380,000 figure is based on better observations of the universe and the measured profile of the CMBR, each value correlating with the other.

          >"and the photons stopped interacting...so we should be able to observe fairly constant radiation coming from all directions."

          "Why? Radiation reflects off most objects, yes? Are you saying that CBR reflects off the edge of the universe and comes back to us?"

          No, I'm saying that, since the mass and energy density of the universe is not uniform, much of that bubble, as it expanded, continued pumping radiation out as each clump cooled.

          "Hey, I'm just looking for the REASONS behind the conclusions. And all I keep getting from Digg users is the conclusions only...as if THEY themselves don't know why."

          You want my reasons? It's because observation and evidence confirms theory. If it didn't, the theory would collapse like a flan in a cupboard. I understand that you're under the impression that scientists are like your own church's 'science' initiative - primarily a lobbying organization to push a specific view. I suppose it's ok that you're jaded like that, but as someone who's worked with scientists, I think they'd be dead appalled at any professional scientist being an advocate for a theory which was not clearly supported by the evidence.

          In short, these are competitive people; there's a lot of them, going for a limited number of jobs. If the big bang theory didn't pan out on observation, the supporters thereof would be called out on it so fast their heads would spin.

          Fact is, there IS no evidence to refute Big Bang, there's a LOT of evidence to support it, and every one of the arguments you made against it in your first post were *predictions* of the original theory, thus aiding in the confirmation process.

          Anyway, the fact is, I don't believe *in* evolution, I don't believe *in* big bang, or whatever other properly scientific theory you think is bunk; I don't have to. I believe evolution. I believe big bang. I believe them, because I know the nature of competition and I know scientific method, and I know that the interaction of the two reliably produces increasing accuracy of results.

          If that's too complex for you, I'm sorry; you'll never know the satisfaction of knowing why things happen as they do. You'll just be stuck with this vague 'spiritual' feeling of connectedness.
        • Doomxeen, on 05/18/2008, -0/+2One thing Fordi is failing to mention is that the CMBR that we measure today comes from the last holdouts from near the beginning of the Big Bang called "the surface of last scattering". I have yet to read anything about radiation bouncing off of the "edges of the universe" and coming back to us.
        • Fordi, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Thanks, I knew I was forgetting something.
  • zaxnyd, on 05/16/2008, -0/+2"The team used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) array"

    Jack: "So Jim, what are we going to name this array of very large telescopes?"
    Jim: "I think you just did."

    Brilliant scientific minds at work.
  • smek2, on 05/17/2008, -1/+1But, but how can they measure temperatures in the past? They don't have time travel machines don't they? I call *****.
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