PBS Space Time podcast

Sound Waves from the Beginning of Time

11/12/2026
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PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE↓ More info below ↓Uploaded 07-02-19You can check out Google's Science Journal app at http://g.co/ScienceJournal Check out the new Space Time Merch Store!https://pbsspacetime.com/Support Space Time on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetimeEmail your answers to: [email protected] the subject heading: Negative Mass Challenge QuestionInvisible to the naked eye, our night sky is scattered with the 100s of billions of galaxies the fill the known universe. Like the stars, these galaxies form constellations – hidden patterns that echo the reverberations of matter and light in an epoch long before galaxies ever formed. These are the baryon acoustic oscillations, and they may hold the key to understanding the nature of dark energy.Tweet at us! @pbsspacetimeFacebook: facebook.com/pbsspacetimeEmail us! pbsspacetime [at] gmail [dot] comComment on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/pbsspacetimeHelp translate our videos!https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_csPrevious Episode: Why String Theory Is Wronghttps://youtu.be/IhpGdumLRqsHosted by Matt O'DowdWritten by Matt O'DowdGraphics by Luke MaroldiDirecting by Andrew KornhaberThe field of cosmology – the study of the universe on its largest scales – was once the least precise in all of astrophysics. The impossibly vast distances made accurate measurements near impossible. But as our telescopes and our techniques improved over the past few decades, things are now different. We live in the era of precision cosmology, in which we know to stunning detail the properties that govern the very birth, evolution, and end of our universe. We talked about one of those properties in a recent episode – the Hubble constant – and about a growing conflict in its measured value which hints at strange new physics. Today we’ll talk about another measurement that may help resolve this crisis: the baryon acoustic oscillations. They the fossils of the first sound waves in the universe, imprinted in the distribution of galaxies on the sky. And in these patterns we can read the expansion history of the universe.Special thanks to our Patreon Big Bang, Quasar and Hypernova Supporters: Big Bang:Anton LifshitscoolascatsDavid NicklasFabrice EapJuan BenetJustin LloydTim DavisQuasar:James FlowersMark RosenthalTambe BarsbayVinnie FalcoHypernova: chuck zegarDanton SpiveyDonal BotkinEdmund FokschanerJens TheisenJohn HofmannJordan YoungJoseph SalomonekkmMark HeisingMatthew O'ConnorThanks to our Patreon Gamma Ray Burst Supporters: Alexey EromenkoAntonio RuizBradley JenkinsBrandon LabonteBuruk AregawiCarlo MogaveroDaniel LyonsDavid BehtalaDavid CraneDavid SchmidtDustan JonesGeoffrey ShortGreg WeissJack FroschJames HughesJames QuinteroJinal DoshiJJ BagnellJohn WebberJon FolksJonahJoseph EmisonJosh ThomasKenneth F LeonardKevin WarneKyle HoferMalte UblMark VasileNathan HitchingsNicholas RoseNick VirtueRatfeastRichard BromanScott GossettSigurd Ruud FrivikTim CrookhamTim StephaniTommy Mogensenسلطان الخليفي Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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