Bell Labs Heard Big Bang

In 1964, American astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson tested Bell Labs’ 20-foot horn antenna in Holmdel, New Jersey, and found a steady noise they could not remove. They ruled out radar, radio broadcasts, receiver heat, and even cleaned pigeon droppings from the antenna, but the hum stayed. The “interference” turned out to be cosmic microwave background radiation, a leftover signal from the Big Bang, and the discovery won them the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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