Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cosmic Microwave Background: Google Earth Style

Posted by Unknown on from the find-the-aliens dept.

iDuck writes "Damien George, of Cambridge University, has created a 3D visualization of the latest data from the Planck mission. Using WebGL, it lets you spin and zoom a 3D model of the Cosmic Microwave Background, and select different wavelength bands."

36 comments

  1. Beachball of God. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is like looking at God's beachball

    1. Re:Beachball of God. by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 1, Troll

      False, This actually exists.

      --
      I got here through a series of tubes
    2. Re:Beachball of God. by Dishevel · · Score: 1

      In which of the infinite number of universes and realities does God not exist?

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    3. Re:Beachball of God. by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 2

      How about all of them. Have fun with that.

      --
      I got here through a series of tubes
    4. Re:Beachball of God. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So in an infinite number of universes under an infinite number of realities ... not one has a God?
      Interesting. God is not only unlikely. He is impossible under any reality imaginable or otherwise.
      Some take their faith in a complete lack of God a little to far.
      I find Atheists as dull and lacking in any ability at critical thought as those who think every word of the bible should be taken literally and that prayer fixes everything.

    5. Re:Beachball of God. by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 1

      Good for you. Here is another thing, there will never be a universe in which I don't think "enlightened" AC's are anything less than huge pretentious douche-bags.

      --
      I got here through a series of tubes
    6. Re:Beachball of God. by femtobyte · · Score: 1

      Unenlightened pseudonymous coward here.

      You should just let the AC have his local-multiverse-bubble God. After all, it's a pretty weaksauce deity --- certainly not "uncreated; creator of all things, seen and unseen" --- that depends on the parameter configuration in a region of a larger multiverse for existence (omnipotence hardly means being ruled by the laws of physics). And, in a causally-disconnected universe from this one, hardly capable of much harm.

      The only God to worry about (or not worry, as your case may be) would be a prerequisite for the possible existence of all possibilities.

    7. Re:Beachball of God. by myowntrueself · · Score: 1

      So in an infinite number of universes under an infinite number of realities ... not one has a God?
      Interesting. God is not only unlikely. He is impossible under any reality imaginable or otherwise.
      Some take their faith in a complete lack of God a little to far.
      I find Atheists as dull and lacking in any ability at critical thought as those who think every word of the bible should be taken literally and that prayer fixes everything.

      I think that an omnipotent, omnipresent God would leak from one reality to another. So if one reality has a God then all would.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  2. Microwave by Tator+Tot · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's funny how the Cosmic Microwave Background looks like the inside of our work microwave.

    --
    To all you virgins: Thanks for nothing.
    1. Re:Microwave by Sulphur · · Score: 1

      It's funny how the Cosmic Microwave Background looks like the inside of our work microwave.

      There was a big bang in your microwave?

  3. Projected wrong? by hrieke · · Score: 2

    Shouldn't it be like a star atlas, projected as if we're standing on the earth, looking out, vs. how it appears now; as a globe?

    --
    III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIIIV IIVIIIIIIVIII...
    1. Re:Projected wrong? by femtobyte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Especially for something that you can't see with your naked eyes, what makes a projection "wrong"? Do you also complain whenever you see a Mercator projection (or other sphere-projected-to-a-rectangle) map? The external spherical projection makes it easy to visualize large-angular-field structures along with small, which are awkward to view from "inside" (without really strong/funky perspective distortion).

    2. Re:Projected wrong? by Baloroth · · Score: 1

      You can do either one, the former (star atlas) is just easier to display and work with, especially in 2 dimensions. Technically, however, the CMB is a map of the temperature of the surface of a sphere, so a globe is a better representation of the reality.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    3. Re:Projected wrong? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whatcha mean man, just go inside the globe and look out.

    4. Re:Projected wrong? by j00r0m4nc3r · · Score: 1

      What does the surface of the sphere represent? Is that the edge of the universe?

    5. Re:Projected wrong? by Baloroth · · Score: 2

      Sort of. It's the edge of the actually visible universe: it's light from the moment (well, it wasn't a moment exactly, but it was nearly instantaneous on the scale of the universe) when photons stopped being scattered by matter, and started free-flowing (this is known as the "surface of last scattering"). Since some points were slightly hotter than others, they produced slightly different distribution of photon energies. Black body radiation (which is what the background radiation is) follows a well-defined curve of photon energies, so from the photons we observe today, we can deduce the differences in temperature in different spots then. The usual picture is of that temperature difference, after scientists have processed out all the foreground noise.

      Technically, the "edge of the universe" is a bit further away than that, but we can't see that far, since light from that period of time was absorbed by all the ionized gas that filled the universe.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    6. Re:Projected wrong? by Trogre · · Score: 1

      While I don't have a problem with this current map, I do get a bit worked up whenever I see a Mercator projection map of the Earth, simply because I know Greenland is not really bigger than Australia (in fact it's a little over 1/4 the size).

      And don't get me started on Antarctica.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  4. Lithium by percy69 · · Score: 2

    Awesome. But I still can't find the missing lithium.

    1. Re:Lithium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      God removed it. He needed it for his laptop's battery.

  5. /.'ed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Site doesn't load.

    1. Re:/.'ed by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      Site doesn't load.

      Probably because it's a Mac Mini on a slow microwave link.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:/.'ed by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 1

      Their server room is one of the hotter spots in the cosmic background radiation.

  6. Like looking at the bottom of a swimming pool... by dmgxmichael · · Score: 2

    Every time I see a picture of the cosmic background radiation I can't help but be reminded of the patterns sunlight makes on the bottom of a swimming pool. How much of what we are seeing is a glimpse into the origin of the universe and how much is distortion introduced by various sources?

  7. Re:Like looking at the bottom of a swimming pool.. by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    Next time you dive into a pool, look up. That is even more lissajous.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  8. Zooming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can double-click to zoom, but how the hell do you zoom back out? Double-right-click doesn't work, so I have no choice but to reload the page.

    1. Re:Zooming by radio4fan · · Score: 1

      + and - keys work for me.

  9. Blurred spots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone know what the blurred round spots are supposed to be on the high-resolution sphere? (zoomed in).

    1. Re:Blurred spots by ceview · · Score: 1

      Small Magellanic clouds may be most likely the Orion Nebula from when I put in coordinates for Galactic latitude -26.20deg long 184.45deg into starrynight software.

  10. Google Earth Style by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So does this mean it will eventually be discontinued

  11. Pretty awesome by ceview · · Score: 1

    This is a very nice visualisation especially all the other wavelengths too. Hoping it shows the membrane structure of the 'bulk' pre-universes wandering out there.

  12. Re:Like looking at the bottom of a swimming pool.. by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

    How much of what we are seeing is a glimpse into the origin of the universe and how much is distortion introduced by various sources?

    Answer that question and you'll get an invite to Stockholm.

  13. An exceedingly rare valid use of scripting by evanh · · Score: 1

    Bonus, it's not full of script-kiddie spyware that permeates 99.99% of websites these days!

    One gripe is the broken zooming direction. When gripping a sheet of paper to pull it closer one pulls back toward oneself. Touchscreen actions are done in this fashion.

    But instead, the scrollwheel action has been made more like dragging a slider of where you are on a larger sheet ... except there is no slider - ruining the effect.