Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: system on 26/07/2011 23:01:02

Title: How can we measure the historical climate of the universe?
Post by: system on 26/07/2011 23:01:02

Climatologists and geologists have developed a number of ways to estimate the temperature on Earth going back a very long way in Earth’s history – but astronomers would like to know the historic temperature of the entire universe – going back more than 13 billion years. George Becker, a fellow at the Kavli Institute for Cosmology, uses the light from Quasars to read off the climatological history of the universe...

Read a transcript of the interview by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1757/)
or [chapter podcast=3389 track=11.07.24/Naked_Scientists_Show_11.07.24_8741.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd) Listen to it now[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/11.07.24/Naked_Scientists_Show_11.07.24_8741.mp3)

Title: How can we measure the historical climate of the universe?
Post by: Mr. Data on 28/07/2011 18:04:48

Cosmic bruises also tell us the story of the universes climate. It is possible with this evidence, to assume the universe was frozen as a prestate to the big bang.

Title: How can we measure the historical climate of the universe?
Post by: MarcS on 29/07/2011 19:43:07

If the gas in the intergalactic medium is highly ionized why does it have an absorption spectrum?  If the absorption comes from a photon of a specific wavelength being absorbed by an atom by kicking an electron up to a higher state then wouldn't an ionized hydrogen or helium atom not be able to absorb a photon since they have no electrons?