The axis of evil
Stories from Physics
for 11-14
14-16
The cosmic microwave background radiation is nearly uniform in all directions. However, in 2003, data from NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe found an unexpected pattern in the temperature data, which the journal Nature listed, in 2015, as one of six baffling physics results that can’t be resolved. At one scale, the random fluctuations of the radiation seem to align in a preferred direction that has been dubbed the ‘axis of evil’ as it threatens models of the nature of the background radiation. A second anomaly in the data is the so-called ‘cold spot’, an area along the ‘axis of evil’ with a temperature around 70 μK less than the mean temperature of the background radiation. The ‘cold spot’ has been associated with a billion-light-year-diameter ‘supervoid’, a huge empty space that is devoid of galaxies.
References
The axis of evil
D. Castelvecchi, Zombie physics: 6 baffling results that just won’t die, Nature Website News, 30th October 2015, http://www.nature.com/news/zombie-physics-6-baffling-results-that-just-won-t-die-1.18685
K. Land, & J. Magueijo, J. (2005). Examination of evidence for a preferred axis in the cosmic radiation anisotropy. Physical Review Letters, vol. 95, no. 7, 2015, 071301.
C. Francis, Light After Dark. Structures of the Sky, Kibworth Beauchamp, Matador, 2016, pp. 7-8
