欧博百家乐Planck reveals an almost perfect Universe
New cosmic recipe
Beyond the anomalies, however, the Planck data conform spectacularly well to the expectations of a rather simple model of the Universe, allowing scientists to extract the most refined values yet for its ingredients.
Normal matter that makes up stars and galaxies contributes just 4.9% of the mass/energy density of the Universe. Dark matter, which has thus far only been detected indirectly by its gravitational influence, makes up 26.8%, nearly a fifth more than the previous estimate.
Conversely, dark energy, a mysterious force thought to be responsible for accelerating the expansion of the Universe, accounts for less than previously thought.
Finally, the Planck data also set a new value for the rate at which the Universe is expanding today, known as the Hubble constant. At 67.15 kilometres per second per megaparsec, this is significantly less than the current standard value in astronomy. The data imply that the age of the Universe is 13.82 billion years.
“With the most accurate and detailed maps of the microwave sky ever made, Planck is painting a new picture of the Universe that is pushing us to the limits of understanding current cosmological theories,” says Jan Tauber, ESA’s Planck Project Scientist.
“We see an almost perfect fit to the standard model of cosmology, but with intriguing features that force us to rethink some of our basic assumptions.
“This is the beginning of a new journey and we expect that our continued analysis of Planck data will help shed light on this conundrum.”