In 1964, physicist Arno Allan Penzias and radio astronomer Robert Woodrow Wilson picked up a persistent hum in their radio telescope readings. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

The noise – like static on a radio – seemed to be there, no matter what direction they pointed the telescope in the sky. At first, the two believed it was coming from the telescope itself , urban interference, or possibly even pigeons living within the telescope's antenna. However, after removing the pigeons and ruling out all other forms of possible terrestrial interference, the noise remained.

In fact, the noise had been heard by other astronomers, though they had dismissed it as meaningless interference. The reason it could be heard by team

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