Cosmic radiation from the big bang discovered

It was in 1964 and two Americans, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson owned a communication antenna that they were trying to make use of. But they were troubled by a persistent background noise, a steady steamy hiss that made experimental work impossible. The noise came from every point in the sky, day and night, every season.

The astronomers did everything they could to track down and eliminate the noise. They tested every electrical system. They rebuilt instruments, checked circuits, wiggled wires, dusted plugs. They climbed into the dish and placed duct tape over every seam and rivet. Then they climbed back into the dish with brooms and brushes and swept away all the bird droppings. But still the annoying noise was there.

Unknown to them, about 50 kilometres away researchers at a university were working on a idea that suggested years before by astrophysicist George Gamow: that if you looked deep enough in space, you should find some cosmic background radiation left over from the big bang. Gamow believed that by the time it had crossed the vastness of the universe the radiation would reach the earth in the form of microwaves. He had even suggested that the antenna that Wilson and Penzias were using would do the job of picking it up. So the noise that the antenna had picked up was what Gamow had anticipated. They had found the edge of the universe, or at least the visible part of it, 150 billion trillion kilometres away!!! They were seeing the first photons-the most ancient light in the universe- as microwaves.