How did we get here? Humanity, life on Earth, our planet itself—how did everything in the universe come into being.
Well, as far as we know, it all started with the Big Bang. But while the Big Bang theory has certainly been in place for a while, we didn’t always have proof that it occurred. It wasn’t until 1964 that scientists managed to capture evidence of the explosion that kickstarted our reality—and explosion we can still hear to this day.
The story behind the discovery of the cosmic microwave background—the radiation that originated from the Big Bang and now permeates every corner in the universe—is full of twists and turns, accidents and frustrations, trials and errors, and pigeons (yes, pigeons). But it started with a hypothesis: if the Big Bang really happened, we should still be able to hear the ripples it created.
Watch Pop Mech’s Jackie Appel reveal the story of how two men from New Jersey named Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson made one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy—by accident.
Using creativity, grit, and a giant horn-shaped radio telescope, they managed to prove once and for all how our universe originally came to be.
The work wasn’t easy. There were a lot of false starts and baffling data to sort through, and the duo needed to collaborate with an entirely unrelated research team to eventually reach their world-changing conclusion. But even limited as they were by 1960s tech, they managed to make the discovery of a lifetime.
See the full episode and learn more about how Penzias and Wilson changed cosmology forever in the video above. And don’t forget to check out the rest of our show Pop Mech Explains the Universe, where we explore other fascinating space stories just like this one.
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