Scientists abandon highly publicized claim about cosmic find
Sacramento Bee = MALCOLM RITTER - 01/30/2015
Quote:
Scientists who made headlines last March by announcing that they hadd found
long-sought evidence about the early universe are now abandoning that claim.
New data show that their cosmic observations no longer back up that conclusion, they say.
The original announcement caused a sensation because it appeared to show evidence that
the universe ballooned rapidly a split-second after its birth, in what scientist call cosmic inflation.
That idea had been widely believed, but researchers had hoped to bolster it
by finding a particular trait in light left over from the very early universe.
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This article doesn’t say so, but what seems to be the situation is that
“dust” in this particular region of the universe (sky) gives off infrared radiation
at 7 distinct wavelengths. These astronomers (the Biceps group) were collecting data
at only 1 of these 7 wavelengths. They did not have access to the data for the other 6.
The initial results were publicly challenged by the astronomers who first described the 7 wavelengths.
When these astronomers eventually shared all of their data, both groups came to this
agreement that the Biceps data is due to cosmic dust.
Oh well, so they will now start playing nicely with one another
and working together to gather additional data.
