Looking At The Beginning

Scientists using the Spitzer Space Telescope have been able to detect light from the beginning of the universe.  The science team basically subtracted all the stars, galaxies, nebulae, bugs on the lens, etc., and were left with a blobby infrared glow.  See the story and images here.  (It should be noted that the image includes what appears to be the face of Alfred E. Neumann, on the left.  Theologians take note.)

How can a telescope look back in time?  Remember that light has a speed, so the more distant something is, the older the light from it that you're seeing must be.  If you look at something a light-year away, it's a year old.  This light is about 13 billion years old, which means it started travelling less than a billion years after the Big Bang. 

The age of the light can be determined by how much it is red-shifted.  Since the Universe is expanding, the more distant an object is, the faster it is moving away from us.  (Was it something we said?)  This shifts the frequency of the light emitted.  Astronomers can identify the original wavelength of the ancient starlight from its emission spectra (which can be compared to emissions from superheated gas in the laboratory), then calculate how much it has been red-shifted, and consequently how far it has gone.  Child's play, really.  The rest -- designing and launching the telescope, filtering out the "background noise" and foreground objects, getting funding -- is mere detail.

I'm not even going to explain why this is important.  If looking at the embers of the fires of Creation doesn't make the hairs on the back of your neck prickle, then you're probably looking at the wrong Web log. 

Green Lantern fans can take comfort in the fact that that probing into the origins of the Universe hasn't released evil or entropy into the world . . . yet.