MAPS of the oldest light in the universe underpin some of cosmology’s most prized theories. Now some astrophysicists are saying that certain features in these maps may be artefacts caused by some unknown property of our solar system, throwing into question the data’s relevance and accuracy.
The all-sky maps of the faint microwave radiation left over from the big bang – measured by a spacecraft called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) – were released with great fanfare in 2003. They supported a bizarre model of the universe dominated by dark energy and dark matter and also backed the popular…
