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Taking a look on the Universe’s darkish ages from the a long way facet of the Moon

Taking a look on the Universe’s darkish ages from the a long way facet of the Moon
April 16, 2025


2nd, there used to be a time, inside the first few hundred million years after the Giant Bang, earlier than stars and galaxies had even shaped. Dubbed the “cosmic darkish ages,” this time naturally makes for a difficult astronomical goal as a result of there weren’t precisely a large number of brilliant assets to generate gentle for us to have a look at.
However there used to be impartial hydrogen. Many of the Universe is made from hydrogen, making it the most typical part within the cosmos. Nowadays, virtually all of that hydrogen is ionized, current in a super-heated plasma state. However earlier than the primary stars and galaxies gave the impression, the cosmic reserves of hydrogen have been cool and impartial.
Impartial hydrogen is made from a unmarried proton and a unmarried electron. Every of those debris has a quantum assets referred to as spin (which more or less resembles the acquainted, macroscopic assets of spin, but it surely’s now not reasonably the similar—despite the fact that that’s a special article). In its lowest-energy state, the proton and electron may have spins orientated in reverse instructions. However on occasion, via natural random quantum probability, the electron will spontaneously turn round. In no time, the hydrogen notices and will get the electron to turn again to the place it belongs. This procedure releases a small quantity of calories within the type of a photon with a wavelength of 21 centimeters.
This quantum transition is exceedingly uncommon, however with sufficient impartial hydrogen, you’ll be able to construct a considerable sign. Certainly, observations of 21-cm radiation had been used broadly in astronomy, particularly to construct maps of chilly gasoline reservoirs inside the Milky Approach.
So the cosmic darkish ages aren’t totally darkish; the ones clouds of primordial impartial hydrogen are emitting super quantities of 21-cm radiation. However that radiation used to be emitted within the far-off previous, smartly over 13 billion years in the past. Because it has traveled during the cosmic distances, all the ones billions of light-years on its technique to our keen telescopes, it has skilled the redshift results of our increasing Universe.

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