UK researchers are participating in a global mission to unravel the origin of the universe in the past. Scientists are looking forward to exploring how the present cosmos formed from scrambling chaos in space.
The project will be joined by six universities in the country which will be assigned to create new space instruments for the Simons Observatory.
UK to Build New Telescopes For Simons Observatory
As Yahoo! News reported, the UK researchers will be helping the other foreign astronomers in upgrading the Simons Observatory or SO through the cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment.
With that being said, new telescopes will be created to scan the skies above the Atacama desert in Chile at 5,300 meters.
The observatory will contain three 16-inch instruments that will be used for the CMB measurement. Moreover, the SO is also said to have a bigger telescope which stands at 20 feet.
The CMB is a crucial part of the project because it's the trail of heat that is left after the Big Bang took place millions of years ago.
According to the Science and Technologies Facilities Council associate director Dr. Colin Vincent, this project funding will let the UK researchers "spearhead discoveries" together with other respectable astronomers from different countries.
Dr. Vincent added that this discovery will help them unearth "the secrets from the very dawn of time."
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Mysterious CMB Baffles the Scientists
During the 1960s US-based radio astronomers were able to detect MCB in the skies. When they unearthed this interesting stuff, they thought that it was just a simple "hum" sound up above the heavens.
In fact, the mysterious microwaves have baffled them as to when they originated. The experts later learned that it was the primordial heat that first existed when the universe was formed.
The current international project aims to dive deeper into the appearance of the universe in a fraction of a second. According to some astronomers, the present galaxies were once only energy fluctuations" when the universe underwent the so-called cosmic inflation.
To study this expansion process better, the Simons Observatory will be there for the scientists so they could propose new models for inflation.
With that being said, astronomers want to know more about dark matter and how the evolutions of the galaxies progressed over time.
Aside from the six UK universities such as Imperial College London University of Cambridge, University of Cardiff, University of Manchester, the University of Oxford, and the University of Sussex, the US-led project consists of 85 institutes across 13 countries, per The Guardian.
For the next 10 years, the Simons observatory will conduct sky mapping to boost its sensitivity. According to Cardiff's School of Physics and Astronomy Prof. Erminia Calabrese, the very small fluctuations in the CMB radiation will reveal more about the origin of the universe, its evolution, and its past composition.
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Written by Joseph Henry
