It is a question that many scientists would like to know the answer: where do we come from? The answer is deeply hidden in the universe. The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Astron, in Dwingeloo is getting closer to the solution to the issue.
Astron scientists do this by studying radio waves. They have been on the road for billions of years and give astronomers the opportunity to look back in time.
Scientists now manage to investigate the signals from the Big Bang period with the help of the radio telescopes. “Although it happened 13.8 billion years ago, we see the signal around us, although it is very weak,” says researcher André Offringa of Astron.
With that, scientists can also find out when the proverbial light came into the universe. “We suspect that a lot of matter of the big bang has been spread over our universe. That matter has started to clump through gravity, in the end that became stars. That was the moment when the light went into our universe.”
The telescopes in Drenthe get better every day, can make sharper images and therefore also give researchers more and more information. “Hopefully with good radio photos we can see traces of the moment when the very first stars started to shine,” says RadioSteun freeman Michiel Brentjens of Astron.
According to Offringa, in our human life it will still be possible to find out the answer that gives us an answer to the fundamental question about evolution. “They are puzzle pieces you are looking for and put it in the right place to understand how we originated and how the universe works. That is what we are researching,” he says.
It would not be the first time that scientists in the Netherlands make an important discovery with the help of radio telescopes. After the founding of Astron in 1949, astronomers discovered the shape of our galaxy. It became a discovery that turned the world upside down.
Then more followed. In the three -part series from the dark, RTV Drenthe pays attention to the unsolved mysteries and questions about the universe. In this first episode, the scientists go back as far as possible in time. But how are you?
View the episode here: