A MYSTERIOUS pattern seen in the cosmic microwave background – the faint afterglow of the big bang – has left some physicists wondering whether this central plank in the evidence for the big bang is somehow flawed. But now there may be a simpler explanation for the pattern: “It is being caused by the gravity of a tremendous concentration of galaxies in our cosmic backyard,” says Chris Vale of Fermilab in Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley.
Dubbed the “axis of evil” by cosmologist João Magueijo of Imperial College London, the pattern appears in the map of the microwave backtround (CMB) built up by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave…
