... and we have got snow!

March has come in, not so much like a lion, but like a polar bear, bringing drifts of dry white stuff on the bitter winds to clothe our frozen landscape. I am glad to hear people saying that this has been a particularly wet and, now, cold, winter: it makes me more hopeful for future years!

And, today's other excitement: scientists have detected a signal from the 'cosmic dawn' [- the moment when the earliest stars emerged. Apparently, for millions of years after it began, the universe was dark and cold, containing only invisible clouds of hydrogen gas, and its only energy the radiation left over from the Big Bang - the 'cosmic microwave'. Then gravity gathered up the densest regions of gas, matter coalesced, collided and collapsed, and the first star nurseries were formed.

No telescope can reach far enough to detect the glow of those primitive stars, which were comprised of just hydrogen and helium, and burned blue, bright, and fast, and, when they died, produced explosions that gave rise to heavier elements, including the carbon and oxygen on which life depends. So since 1999 astrophysicists have turned to the analysis of wavelengths to detect the signature of the stars, deriving from an imprint of that cosmic microwave radiation. An antenna in the Australian desert has been listening for the signature signal, and, by excluding everything else, it has now been 'heard' - the signature of emerging stars emanating from 180 million years after the Big Bang, which is twice the time/distance anything has been observed before.

The stars whose signature has now been heard - and which was twice as large as expected -  'made the seeds for everything that came out of them' One of the team involved in the discovery says: 'It's about understanding our cosmic origins. If you think about, how did humans get here, basically the first rung on the ladder is you need something in the universe.'  And they have found that 'something'. Well done them!

(Graphics from msn news report)