Posthuman Blues

Big Bang Brouhaha Brewing

The UAH data shows a shadow effect of about one-quarter of what was predicted - an amount roughly equal in strength to natural variations previously seen in the microwave background across the entire sky. "Either it [the microwave background] isn't coming from behind the clusters, which means the Big Bang is blown away, or... there is something else going on," said Lieu. "One possibility is to say the clusters themselves are microwave emitting sources, either from an embedded point source or from a halo of microwave-emitting material that is part of the cluster environment. Based on all that we know about radiation sources and halos around clusters, however, you wouldn't expect to see this kind of emission. And it would be implausible to suggest that several clusters could all emit microwaves at just the right frequency and intensity to match the cosmic background radiation."