Using a balloon to bring the telescope up to observe the Big Bang trace

Scientists are experimenting with using a balloon to bring the radio telescope high to observe cosmic microwave background radiation.

The universe was born 13.8 billion years ago, after experiencing a big bang, the universe expanded and eventually formed as it is today.

Now, science has known that cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) is a trace of Big Bang, so studying cosmic microwave background radiation is a breakthrough to discover the truth about Big Bang, over that is more knowledgeable about the origin of the universe. This is being done by observing through NASA's BICEP2 telescope located in Antarctica.

Currently, scientists here are doing an experiment: using a balloon to bring radio telescopes high, thus avoiding the interference of the atmosphere, thus making it easier to observe the CMBR; on the other hand, the cost is much cheaper than using a telescopic rocket to orbit Earth.

The set of six SPIDER telescopes is brought up by the balloon into the upper atmosphere.

This mission was named SPIDER ( Suborbital Polarimeter for Inflation, Dust and the Epoch of Reionization ): using a balloon to bring a set of six radio telescopes to the upper atmosphere, from which to observe Space. This experiment was conducted by scientists at Princeton University and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). They hope to observe ripples of gravity caused by expansion just after the Big Bang.

In fact, SPIDER is carried out in conjunction with the BICEP2 project. In mid-2014, the scientists of the BICEP2 project announced they had observed the B-polarization signal of the cosmic microwave background radiation, thereby strongly proving the predictive hypothesis of relativity. The broad meaning, at the same time, this result is also a definite evidence of cosmic expansion. The above hypothesis suggests that the universe rapidly expanded in time by 10-36 seconds after the Big Bang.

But not long after the BICEP2 team published the observation results, other scientists voiced their doubts about the accuracy of the data. Finally, the BICEP2 group admitted observations with errors, caused by the interactions between the magnetic field of the Milky Way and cosmic dust. Therefore, in order to confirm the origin of this error, the SPIDER project needs to conduct observations from above to determine whether it is the dust interaction and the Milky system magnetic field that causes errors in the results. BICEP2 telescope observations or not.

Perhaps a lot of people are surprised why the balloon hovering in the sky in Antarctica is the best way to collect the data. Actually using rockets to send telescopes to Earth orbit for observation is the most ideal option, but this way is too expensive. In addition, the use of observation radio telescopes requires a dry environment; Antarctica is a relatively ideal place, so is the desert, for example, the Atacama desert in Chile is a good place to observe celestial bodies.

SPIDER's balloon will work in the air for 20 days and land in the next few days, when the team can determine whether the observed result of BICEP2 has errors.