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Astronomy & Space vocabulary · Cosmology

Cosmic microwave background

Meaning in astronomy & space, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In astronomy & space, cosmic microwave background means: The faint microwave radiation that fills the whole sky, left over from about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. It is often shortened to CMB.

In Turkish: kozmik mikrodalga arka plan ışıması, kozmik fon ışıması

How it is used

One of the strongest pieces of evidence for the Big Bang. Two radio astronomers discovered it by accident in 1965. Its temperature is about 2.7 kelvin, and tiny ripples in it show the seeds of later galaxies.

Example sentences

  1. The cosmic microwave background is the oldest light we can observe.

  2. Satellites have mapped tiny temperature differences in the cosmic microwave background.

Common collocations

  • map the cosmic microwave background
  • CMB radiation
  • CMB temperature
  • fluctuations in the CMB
  • Big BangThe scientific model in which the universe began about 13.8 billion years ago in an extremely hot, dense state and has been expanding and cooling ever since.
  • universeAll of space and time and everything in it: matter, energy, planets, stars and galaxies. Its observable part is about 93 billion light-years across.
  • redshiftThe stretching of light from an object that is moving away from us or whose light crosses expanding space, so that its spectral lines shift to longer, redder wavelengths.
  • radio telescopeA telescope that collects radio waves from space with a large dish or a set of antennas instead of visible light. It can observe through clouds and during the day.

More terms: Cosmology

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