Planck Reveals Dusty Problem for BICEP2s Gravitational Waves. According to a new and highly-anticipated galactic dust map released by the European Planck space telescope today, the region of sky studied by the BICEP2 telescope appears to contain significant quantities of interstellar dust; dust that may be obscuring the primordial light in which BICEP2 apparently detected the signal of gravitational waves. And this is bad news; the possible detection of gravitational waves may have been a false alarm all along. ANALYSIS: Dust and Rumors: Gravitational Wave Signal Still Legit? BICEP2 is a very sensitive telescope built with the intent to spot a specific type of polarization theorized to be caused by the presence of gravitational waves in the CMB known as “B-mode polarization.” In the March announcement, the excited BICEP2 team were so sure of their findings that they announced the discovery before their results were published in a peer-reviewed journal. Almost immediately, the astronomy community criticized the BICEP2 announcement, suggesting that insufficient consideration for interstellar dust may be interfering with the CMB polarization signal. Our galaxy is known to be filled with interstellar dust, so any astronomical observations beyond our galaxy have to peer through that dust. Therefore, corrections for the polarizing effects by the dust needs to be made. Planck, which was launched to the Earth-sun L2 point (in the Earth’s shadow) in 2009, has been gradually surveying the whole sky in an effort to map the dust so its effects can be better understood. Although the BICEP2 team contested that they did take the dusty interference into account before the March announcement, the dust data they used as a reference was incomplete and, as it turns out, woefully underestimated the quantity of dust along BICEP2′s line of sight.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 22:33:33 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015