Home > Cosmic background radiation
When any patch of the sky is observed where no individual sources can be discerned, and the effects of interplanetary dust, and interstellar matter are taken into account, there is still radiation.This radiation is known as Cosmic Background Radiation.
The origin of this radiation depends on the region of the spectrum that we are observing.
Certainly the most famous component is the Cosmic microwave background radiation. In the standard model, this is taken to be a remainder of the epoch when the universe, still hot, became transparent for the first time to radiation.
The Sunyaev Zeldovic theory shows the phenomena of radiant cosmic background radiation interacting with "electron" clouds distorting the spectrum of the radiation.
There is also background radiation in the infrared, x-rays, etc., with different causes; most of these are ultimately attributable to unresolved individual sources.
See also
Main:
Timeline of cosmic microwave background astronomy,
Cosmic microwave background radiation,
Galaxy formation and evolution,
Magnitude,
Universe
Cosmology:
Big Bang,
Non-standard cosmologyA non-standard cosmology is a cosmological theory that contradicts the standard model of cosmology. The term has been used since the late 1960s after the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) in 1965 by Penzias and Wilson. These obs
PhysicsPhysics (from the Greek, physikos , "natural", and physis , "Nature") is the science of Nature in the broadest sense. Physicists study the behavior and properties of matter in a wide variety of contexts, ranging from the sub-microscopic particles from whi:
Dark matterDark matter is matter that can't be detected by its emitted radiation but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter such as stars and galaxies. Estimates of the amount of matter in the universe based on gravitational effe,
Dirac seaThe Dirac sea is a theoretical model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles possessing negative energy. It was invented by the British physicist Paul Dirac in 1930 to explain the anomalous negative-energy quantum states predicted by the Dirac equat,
Hot dark matterHot dark matter is a form of dark matter, which consists of particles that travel with relativistic velocities. The best candidate for hot dark matter is the neutrino. Neutrinos have very small mass, and do not partake in two of the four fundamental force,
IrradiationIrradiation is the process whereby an item is exposed to radiation. In common usage the term refers specifically to ionizing radiation, and to a level of radiation that will be destructive to life, rather than simply exposure to normal levels of radiation,
Sunyaev Zeldovic Effect
Other:
List of astronomical topics
Creation
