An international team of researchers has concluded that relic radiation may have a completely different nature than previously thought. It is a key pillar of modern cosmology and is considered one of the main proofs of the Big Bang.
What is relic radiation?
Relic radiation refers to thermal radiation that uniformly fills the universe. It is believed that it formed approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang. By this point, the plasma filling the newborn universe had cooled to a temperature of 3000 K. Electrons combined with protons to form the first atoms. There was more free space between particles, fewer charged particles, and, as a result, the universe became transparent to thermal radiation photons, which have been spreading unhindered ever since.
As the universe continued to expand, the effective temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation dropped to nearly absolute zero. Currently, it is only 2.725 K. Relic radiation is the most distant object that can be observed in the electromagnetic spectrum and contains important information about the early stages of the formation of the universe.
Alternative source of relic radiation
The emergence of relic radiation was predicted as early as the late 1940s. Its existence was experimentally confirmed in 1965. Along with cosmological redshift, relic radiation is considered one of the main confirmations of the Big Bang theory. However, the results of a new study published in the journal Nuclear Physics B offer a different version of its origin.
According to a team of astrophysicists, its source may be the oldest galaxies. The results of observations by the James Webb Telescope show that the first galaxies in the universe formed much faster and were much brighter than previously thought.
These early galaxies contained enormous amounts of gas and rapidly formed supergiant stars of the so-called Population III. According to scientists’ calculations, their light may well be responsible for the very microwave background that is taken to be the “echo” of the Big Bang. According to their calculations, it could have formed between 1.4% and 100% of the relic radiation.
If the hypothesis is confirmed, astronomers will have to revise the standard cosmological model. Current ideas about the early universe and the processes involved in the formation of the first stars and galaxies will also undergo a major revision.
According to Sciencedirect.com
