Who knew the Universe was squishy?

By Phil Plait | June 20, 2009 10:29 am

You may have seen the particle zoo plushies: stuffed versions of various particles like the bottom quark and the electron antineutrino. They’ve been plugged on lots of other websites and I have to admit they’re pretty cute (and maybe even a good way to get kids ~~indoctrinated~~ interested in science).

My friend Scott Romanowksi just tipped me off that they have a new item: the Cosmic Microwave Background plushie. It’s pretty funny:

<a href="http://www.particlezoo.net/individual_pages/shop_cmbr.html" target="_blank" CMBR plushie

Awwwwww.

… but. Reading the accompanying text, I had to laugh.

It says, "The variations in the [CMBR] pattern corresponds to density variations which formed galaxies and were first detected by NASA’s KOBE explorer."

The satellite to which they refer is the Cosmic Background Explorer, or COBE. Not "KOBE", which is either a tasty Japanese beef or a basketball player with a somewhat checkered history. Also, to be über-pedantic, the E is for "explorer", so it’s like saying "ATM Machine", and etc. I’ve sent them an email about it, and I fully expect them to shower me with plushies out of gratitude. Or, more likely, they’ll send me an email back making fun of me. [Update: Feel the true power of the BABLog: I got an email from Julie at Particle Zoo, and she's already corrected the image! Awesome.]

Either way, better get your plushie now: once Planck starts mapping the CMBR these’ll be collectors’ items.

CATEGORIZED UNDER: Cool stuff, Humor, NASA, Time Sink

Comments (38)

Links to this Post

De kosmische achtergrondstraling als knuffelbijAstroblogs | June 21, 2009

Gary Ansorge

I expect the Squishy expert, Dr Myers, will now have evidence to substantiate his theory that Biology Rules the Cosmos,,,

Well, at least they’re not mushy,,,

GAry 7

June 20, 2009 at 10:57 am
Billingham

I’ve given up on “ATM Machine” or “VIN Number” and “JEB Bush.” They just sound better with the redundant word attached.

(John Ellis Bush is the former president’s brother. Not Jebadiah or anything like that. It’s like GOB Bluth)

June 20, 2009 at 11:10 am
John Swindle

Billingham – I agree, they sound better. I’m still troubled by “and etc.”, though.

June 20, 2009 at 11:18 am
John Paradox

Wouldn’t KOBE Explorer basically be a map of the city?

PIN Number….
c/o the Department of Redundancy Department (Bureau of Repetition)

J/P=?

June 20, 2009 at 11:25 am
Stuart Van Onselen

Seems they’ve already fixed it. Which doesn’t mean they won’t also make fun of you.

June 20, 2009 at 11:26 am
Roy Steves

Interesting… a little more abstract than the microbe plush toys, but I approve!

June 20, 2009 at 11:31 am
ChimaeraLaurie

Cuute! It looks really good on my LCD display.

June 20, 2009 at 11:47 am
kurt_eh

I want a plush Ununoctium, the newest element!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununoctium

June 20, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Robert Cumming

Another new one is the cuddly neutralino they did for ESA. It’s going up to the ISS with STS-128 in August.

June 20, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Pete

Squishy? I thought it was timey-wimey

June 20, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Oded

Could someone explain to me, in what way is the CMBR supposed to be a round shape? In which direction is it being looked at, why is it round?
Is it a description of a ball that has the sun at the center?
I am just completely baffled by this every time I see the CMBR picture. What direction am I looking at here??
I have repeatedly tried and have not been able to find an adequate explanation for this…

June 20, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Navneeth

Oded, this is similar to how you map the continents of the Earth on a Euclidean 2D atlas. Now, here, instead of looking at it from the “outside” as in the case of Earth, we look at it from the “inside.” (Okay, I really should not have used that word, even within quotes, but I hope you catch my drift.)

Also, we have the galactic equator (the imaginary central line passing through the Milky Way — as seen from the Earth — which marks the 0 deg latitude in the galactic coordinate system) splitting the image in two.

As for the details regarding the direction, I have not come across an image of the CMB with a constellation overlay, but roughly the centre corresponds to the Sagittarius region — remember that the SMBH at the core of the Milky Way is known as Sgr A*?

June 20, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Brian

Those are ridiculously cute. I love the proton 5-pack that comes containing three quarks and a gluon.

June 20, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Bellatrix Orionis

Who says particle physics can’t be cool and cute

June 20, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Strahlungsamt

Is this the same company who brought us cuddly microbes?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/6708/

June 20, 2009 at 4:16 pm
mus

Aaaww! and it’s flat too! I don’t know why, but the fact that it’s flat makes it 50 times cuter. At first I thought it was just a furry football.

June 20, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Ian O'Neill

Yey!! A COBE plushie… I WANT one.

I was overjoyed when I discovered my Higgs boson plushie in the mail: http://www.astroengine.com/?p=1656 — turns out, as its mass-energy is so damned huge, it makes for a formidable weapon

@Strahlingsamt: No, not the same company. Julie was running a “sweatshop of one” where it was just her sewing these things by herself. I hope she has some help. I did an interview with her here: http://www.astroengine.com/?p=1430

So cool

June 20, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Torbjörn Larsson, OM

Well, I’m glad that it’s microwave background so soft and plushy, not X-ray hard and spiky.

These critters are timely too, now that biologists have censused the animals and perhaps found that same-sex behavior is generic, see this weeks papers. (But for various not well known reasons. If and when they can explain different sex evolution I assume they may go for the less “easy” variants.) Though I’ll admit that the top and bottom pair doesn’t look like I imagined.

What direction am I looking at here??

Technically, all of them. Which is the center view I dunno, obviously it’s somewhere in the galactic plane from the “before” local source extinctions. I guess they choose galactic center for easy to orient purposes.

June 20, 2009 at 5:23 pm
pablo

I always imagined the top and bottom quarks to look like something inspired by Tom of Finland.

June 20, 2009 at 5:24 pm
DrFlimmer

Phil, you should definitly buy such a “background plushie”! And if you will ever make a video again, you will have the “CMB plushie OOOOOOOOFFFF Science”

June 20, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Stone Age Scientist

Gary Ansorge @ #1 wrote, “I expect the Squishy expert, Dr Myers, will now have evidence to substantiate his theory that Biology Rules the Cosmos,,,”

True, Gary, but somehow I believe that is not what The Professor will be thinking.

~~~
Addendum: Or maybe not, I just discovered where it is being made. (Though I do hope the raw materials are American, too.)

June 20, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Stone Age Scientist

Speaking of Kobe beef, I hear that they give the cows beer to drink, and also play classical music to them (through speakers, of course!). Not sure if this is true, but it’s well-known here that the Japanese, our literal neighbors, have quirky habits when it comes to matters pertaining to food. And oh, I hear the beef is very expensive.

~~~
Ha, Phil, when it comes to science, one has to be über-pedantic.

June 20, 2009 at 7:37 pm
mus

@#18:

now that biologists have censused the animals and perhaps found that same-sex behavior is generic, see this weeks papers. (But for various not well known reasons. If and when they can explain different sex evolution I assume they may go for the less “easy” variants.)

I’m curious… what exactly did you have in mind ? Last I checked (a few years ago), a bit more than a thousand animal species have been observed engaging in same-sex sexual behavior. Are there more now?

By “different sex evolution” did you mean the evolution of different sexes? If so, I recommend reading “The red queen” by Matt Ridley. It’s very interesting.

June 20, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Naomi

Oh, dude XD I want one! (I only have a plushie cold virus.)

Also, NEAT. I didn’t know that CBR makes up part of static on TV!

June 20, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Levi in NY

So does this mean the universe isn’t flat after all?

June 20, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Oded

Navneeth, thank you! I get what you mean by “inside”, and that makes perfect sense to me, it’s actually what I figured it would be, something similar to a globe map, that makes sense.
So I also understand the milky way being in the middle there…

The only question left is where is the center of the “sphere” being mapped here? In the case of a globe, the center is of course the center of the Earth. In this mapping, I am guessing the center is the Sun, by the way the picture was mapped by the satellites, as looking outward from the solar system, from L2.
After that, when you have a complete spherical mapping from around the sun, this 2D image was mapped by orienting the sphere so the milky way would be the X axis. Am I accurate here?…

As for constellations, sorry, I’m not fluent in those. I’m still waiting for my very first telescope – Galileoscope…

June 21, 2009 at 2:00 am
Tak

Or like “ATMOS System.”

June 21, 2009 at 7:36 am
Navneeth

the picture was mapped by the satellites, as looking outward from the solar system, from L2.
After that, when you have a complete spherical mapping from around the sun, this 2D image was mapped by orienting the sphere so the milky way would be the X axis. Am I accurate here?…

Yes, you’re right, it’s from that oft-quoted phrase — “our vantage point in space.” Although I doubt if it’s a spherical mapping. Someone else who knows better could probably chime in on this one.

As for constellations, sorry, I’m not fluent in those. I’m still waiting for my very first telescope – Galileoscope…

Actually, the best way to orient yourself with the sky is to do it without a telescope. And learning the constellations is a must, if you ask me, before “advancing” to a scope. So, before you get your Galileoscope, print out a star chart or get a planisphere and go constellation hunting.

June 21, 2009 at 9:36 am
Oded

Thanks Navneeth! As long as you mentioned it, could you point to me to something which could be helpful for a complete newbie such as myself? some kind of start-up guide website or anything like that?
Should I start with those sky maps and look at skymaps.com ? Do you have something more oriented at complete newbies?

June 21, 2009 at 10:12 am
Ed

Oded, there is an excellent explanation of the maps of the cosmic microwave background on astronomer Mark Whittle’s page at the University of Virginia:
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~dmw8f/BBA_web/unit03/unit3.html#ALLAROUND

June 21, 2009 at 10:39 am
Navneeth

Oded, check out the links in the sidebar at Sky&Telescope’s website, beginning here. [To the BA: I hope this instance of referring to another magazine is allowed here?] And I have heard a lot of good things about Terence Dickison’s book NightWatch, although I haven’t actually read it myself.

June 21, 2009 at 11:51 am
Halcyon Dayz, FCD

From The ParticleZoo:

I tried to make the tachyon completely massless but I’m still waiting for him to return from the past (future?) to find out if it worked.

LOL.

June 21, 2009 at 3:55 pm
PJE

I just bought 3 of them

The shipping was really cheap to Canada, unlike the gallileoscope, where the shipping was MORE than the telescope

Pete

June 21, 2009 at 8:32 pm
IBY

Power? I don’t know, man… I expected world domination.

June 21, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Mena

I kind of liked the anti-strange quark the best. He looks a bit sinister, even without a goatee!

June 22, 2009 at 7:53 am
quantum cephalopod

Not “KOBE”, which is either a tasty Japanese beef or a basketball player with a somewhat checkered history.

Strangely enough, I’m pretty sure that Kobe Bryant was named after the beef by his father, who was a professional basketball player overseas.

June 22, 2009 at 9:02 am
Stone Age Scientist

Well actually, Kobe (神戸市) is the name of the Japanese city for which the beer-guzzled, classical-music-tainted, Swedish-massaged beef was named after (Kobe City being where the beef first originated).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe

~~~
John Paradox @ #4, mentioned KOBE Explorer as the map of the city. I thought that was a dead giveaway.

Also, please note that the Wikipedia article does not mention the cows listening to (being played) classical music. I myself cannot confirm if they do or not. It was what I heard from a friend of mine.

If perchance when you’re eating your Kobe beef, and suddenly from out of nowhere Holst’s The Planets begin to play, then that means my friend was correct.

June 24, 2009 at 8:12 am