The Astronomy Book

279 microwave radiation, which makes it hard to see. Eventually, however, the protostar gathers enough mass for fusion to begin, ...

WRINKLES IN TIME OBSERVING THE CMB ...

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282 OBSERVING THE CMB to the inflationary model of the early universe proposed by American Alan Guth. The CMB is a flash of radi ...

283 One of the key observations of the CMB came in the 1970s, and removed any doubt that it was an echo of the Big Bang. This wa ...

284 The temperature of the CMB today is a chilly 2.7 K. The thermal spectrum at that temperature contains no visible light, whic ...

285 and the edge of the universe. Dust clouds and the effects of gravity had interfered with the radiation on its long journey t ...

286 THE KUIPER BELT IS REAL EXPLORING BEYOND NEPTUNE IN CONTEXT KEY ASTRONOMERS David Jewitt (1958–) Jane Luu (1963–) BEFORE 193 ...

287 See also: The Kuiper belt 184 ■ The Oort cloud 206 ■ Studying Pluto 314–17 THE TRIUMPH OF TECHNOLOGY of spotting small icy o ...

MOST STARS ARE ORBITED BY PLANETS EXOPLANETS ...

MOST STARS ARE ORBITED BY PLANETS EXOPLANETS ...

290 I n 1995, two Swiss astronomers, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, researching at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence near Mars ...

291 understand that their existence is insignificant in the context of the universe. The principle is named after Nicolaus Coper ...

292 The most successful method was the transit method, which looked for periodic changes in the brightness of a star. These chan ...

293 have proved to be false positives but, after three years of analysis, the program had identified 1,284 exoplanets, with more ...

294 These super-Jupiter planets do not appear to grow in size as their mass increases. For instance, Corot-3b is a super-Jupiter ...

295 like Baby Bear’s porridge in the fairy tale, “not too hot, not too cold.” The size and locations of habitable zones depend o ...

296 See also: Beyond the Milky Way 172–77 ■ Quasars and black holes 218–21 ■ Studying distant stars 304–05 ■ Looking farther int ...

297 See also: Radio astronomy 179 ■ Discovering black holes 254 ■ Studying distant stars 304–05 I n 1935, Karl Jansky found a so ...

COSMIC EXPANSION IS ACCELERATING DARK ENERGY ...