CMB Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe

Explanation: Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. But these speeds are less than the speed that all of these objects together move relative to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). In the featured all-sky map from the COBE satellite in 1993, microwave light in the Earth's direction of motion appears blueshifted and hence hotter, while microwave light on the opposite side of the sky is redshifted and colder. The map indicates that the Local Group moves at about 600 kilometers per second relative to this primordial radiation. This high speed was initially unexpected and its magnitude is still unexplained. Why are we moving so fast? What is out there?

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The car was not in danger of being vacuumed into space by the big sky vortex. Since the Earth's magnetic field is caused by particles hitting the planet from space, the vortex was actually an Aurora. The Auroral display was caused by a Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun that passed very close to the Earth. The upper red parts of the Aurora are over 250 kilometers high and have a red glow. The lower green parts of the Aurora are over 100 kilometers high and have a green glow because of atmospheric atomic oxygen and first-energized molecular nitrogen. Auroras end abruptly because there is little atomic oxygen below 100 kilometers. The corona is seen from the side of the cylinder. The featured image was created from a single 3-second exposure taken in March over Lake Myvat n.