cosmic microwave background

noun

Examples of cosmic microwave background in a Sentence

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The researchers think this high-energy neutrino could have been generated when an ultra-high energy cosmic ray, most likely a proton, struck a photon in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Robert Lea, Space.com, 12 Feb. 2025 The scattering of the light of the cosmic microwave background, for example, offers clues to the total amount of reionization since that light was emitted, roughly 380,000 years after the Big Bang. The Editors, JSTOR Daily, 30 Jan. 2025 For instance, the light leftover from the big bang, called the cosmic microwave background, has some mysterious large-scale fluctuations that don’t look totally random, notes Dragan Huterer, a cosmologist at the University of Michigan. Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 1 Jan. 2025 This, Clark explained, was the cosmic microwave background – a snapshot, taken by the European Space Agency's now-defunct Planck telescope, of radiation left over from the Big Bang. Jessica Hullinger, theweek, 27 Nov. 2024 See All Example Sentences for cosmic microwave background

Word History

First Known Use

1981, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of cosmic microwave background was in 1981

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Cite this Entry

“Cosmic microwave background.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cosmic%20microwave%20background. Accessed 28 Feb. 2025.

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