Evidence for cosmic inflation wanes | Science/AAAS | News

Evidence for cosmic inflation wanes | Science/AAAS | News: Now, researchers from the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft have shown that radiation from dust in our galaxy accounts for some, and possibly all, of the BICEP signal.

Big Bang breakthrough team back-pedals on major result - physics-math - 19 June 2014 - New Scientist

Big Bang breakthrough team back-pedals on major result - physics-math - 19 June 2014 - New Scientist: The paper published today is significant because it is the first time the researchers themselves have dialled back on their original claims...

"It seems that real data from Planck is indicating that these dust models are under-estimates," says Pryke. "The prior knowledge of dust at these latitudes in our field of view has gone up and so the confidence in the gravitational wave component has gone down."

Blow for 'dark flow' in Planck's new view of the cosmos

Blow for 'dark flow' in Planck's new view of the cosmos: This flow suggested that the universe had somehow become lopsided, as if space-time itself was behaving like a tilted table and matter was sliding off...
The latest search is based on a new, higher-resolution map of the cosmic microwave background from Planck. The Planck team says their multi-pronged analysis also found no evidence of galaxy clusters gushing along in a coherent stream.

Planck shows almost perfect cosmos – plus axis of evil

Planck shows almost perfect cosmos – plus axis of evil: "The overall conclusion is that standard cosmology is an extremely good match to Planck data," said Efstathiou. "If I were an inflationary theorist I would be extremely happy."

...Planck reveals that one half of the universe has bigger variations than the other. Planck's detectors are over 10 times more sensitive and have about 2.5 times the angular resolution of WMAP's, giving cosmologists a much better look at this alignment. "We can be extremely confident that these anomalies are not caused by galactic emissions and not caused by instrumental effects..."

Mystery of dark matter may be near to being deciphered

Mystery of dark matter may be near to being deciphered: "We have observed a very unique emission of radio radiation from the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. By using different methods to separate the signal for very broad range of   wavelengths, we have been able to determine the spectrum of the radiation. The radiation originates from synchrotron emission, i.e. electrons and positrons circulating at high energies around the lines of the Magnetic Field in the centre of the galaxy, and there are quite strong indications that it could come from dark matter..."

"The radiation cannot be explained by the structural mechanisms in the galaxy and it cannot be radiation from supernova explosions. We believe that this could be proof of dark matter. Otherwise, we have discovered absolutely new (and unknown for physics) mechanism of acceleration of particles in the Galactic centre..."

How Planck's pain could be the LHC's gain - physics-math - 07 July 2010 - New Scientist

How Planck's pain could be the LHC's gain - physics-math - 07 July 2010 - New Scientist: "Two of the biggest prizes in physics today – the detection of gravitational waves (one of Planck's aims) and the discovery of a new set of particles (which the LHC is after) – could be at odds. Success for one could mean disappointment for the other."

BBC News - Planck telescope reveals ancient cosmic light

BBC News - Planck telescope reveals ancient cosmic light - ""What you see is the structure of our galaxy in gas and dust, which tells us an awful lot about what is going on in the neighbourhood of the Sun; and it tells us a lot about the way galaxies form when we compare this to other galaxies," observed Professor Andrew Jaffe, a Planck team member from Imperial College London, UK."