Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Nautilus

    We Bathe Always in the Glow of the Big Bang

    by Brian Koberlein Mar 21, 2014 4 minutes

    A map of the cosmic microwave background from the COBE satellite.NASA

    It was born when the Universe was just 10 human heartbeats old. A small burst of electromagnetic energy known as a photon. A primordial particle of light.

    At that time the Universe was a blazing hot mix of ionized hydrogen and helium, a sea of positively charged nuclei and electrons at full boil. This sea was so hot and dense that the photon was constantly scattered, or bounced around between them, never traveling far between. For 380,000 years, the light was scattered as the Universe cooled, until finally ions and electrons slowed—free to begin a very long journey.

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from Nautilus

    Nautilus7 min read
    Lithium, the Elemental Rebel
    Inside every rechargeable battery—in electric cars and phones and robot vacuums—lurks a cosmic mystery. The lithium that we use to power much of our lives these days is so common as to seem almost prosaic. But this element turns out to be a wild card
    Nautilus10 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
    How AI Can Save the Zebras
    Tanya Berger-Wolf didn’t expect to become an environmentalist. After falling in love with math at 5 years old, she started a doctorate in computer science in her early 20s, attracting attention for her cutting-edge theoretical research. But just as s
    Nautilus13 min read
    The Shark Whisperer
    In the 1970s, when a young filmmaker named Steven Spielberg was researching a new movie based on a novel about sharks, he returned to his alma mater, California State University Long Beach. The lab at Cal State Long Beach was one of the first places

    Related Books & Audiobooks