March 31, 2006

NASA Probe Helps Fill in Details of Big Bang Theory

By RICHARD MONASTERSKY

A study of the oldest light in the cosmos has allowed cosmologists to probe the universe in its first moment of life, only a hundred-billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after it blinked into existence in the Big Bang.

The data, collected by a NASA satellite called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, strongly support the so-called inflationary theory, which holds that the universe expanded from smaller than a marble to its currently visible size in less

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