A huge wave of publicity greeted the anworking on the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) project. What do the discoveries really amount to? RICHARD ROZANSKI reports. For cosmologists the COBE discoveries are very important - though they still need independent confirmation and many more details, which should become available over the next few years.
The generally-held model is 15 billion years ago which marked the universe, which has been exnouncement of the discoveries made by scientists panding ever since.
loday we see a universe which is very 'lumpy' galaxies and galaxy clusters separated by huge amounts of empty space. Yet when the universe started the distribution of matter was almost certainly very smooth and uniform. So how did it end up like it is today? How did the galaxies, and the stars within them, form?
We know that gravity acts over vast distances and can hold Kalasies ana salday clusters together, but something was needed to kickstart the process when the universe vas still very young Different theories sugges different catalysts; but how can