Page 30 - Timelessness and the Reality of Fate

28 TIMELESSNESS AND THE REALITY OF FATE

The universe is 13.73 billion years old. The margin for error here is around
1%. Prior to this, space was estimated to be 15-20 billion years old. 23

The first stars began shining about 400 million years after the Big
Bang. 24 Such an early dating astonished scientists.
The universe is made up of 4.6% ordinary atoms, 23.3% dark matter
and 72.1% dark energy. These new measurements will enable significant
data to be obtained about the nature of the dark energy, which pulls galaxies
apart. 25
Scientists say that this information support and reinforce the theories
of the Big Bang and the expanding universe. "This is a beginning of a new
stage in our study of the early Universe," said one WMAP team member
from Princeton University, N.J. "We can use this portrait … to understand
the first moments of the Big Bang." 26

Discoveries That Have Put an End to the Big Bang Debate
Two separate study groups made up of British, Australian and Ameri-
can scientists produced a three-dimensional map of some 266,000 galaxies in
the wake of many years of research. The scientists compared the data they
collected about the distribution of the galaxies with those of the cosmic
background radiation disseminated throughout the universe, and obtained
important findings about the origin of the galaxies. Researchers analyzing
the studies concluded that galaxies formed where matter relatively clus-
tered some 350,000 years after the Big Bang and took shape due to the grav-
itational force. The findings in question provided new evidence for the Big
Bang theory.
One study carried out over 10 years by the Anglo-Australian Observa-
tory in New South Wales, Australia determined the positions in space of
around 220,000 galaxies using a three-dimensional mapping technique. The
mapping procedure, carried out using the observatory's 3.9 meter-diameter
telescope, was nearly ten times larger than previous similar surveys. 27 A
team of scientists led by the director of the observatory, Dr. Matthew Col-
less, determined galaxies' positions relative to one another and the distances
between them. They then modeled the distribution patterns and examined
minute fluctuations in these models in great detail.
In a similar study conducted by the Apache Point Observatory in the
US state of New Mexico - of another region of space - some 46,000 galaxies
were three-dimensionally mapped and their distribution examined. The