Visualizing and Historicizing Cosmic Radiation

As knowledge producers, visualizations of astrophysical phenomena – the images produced by a concatenation of technological means and the physiological-cognitive processes of viewing and interpreting such images – depend upon light as an instrument, a messenger, and (often but not always in the age of multi-messenger astronomy) the object under observation and interrogation. This talk examines the epistemic roles of images produced by highly sensitive instruments on NASA's COBE and WMAP and ESA's Planck spacecraft which made visible the universe's very first light: the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Their iconic images mapped the universe's embryonic structure, modeled the evolution of cosmic structure from the big bang to today, and provided constraints on fundamental astrophysical parameters. To educate and prefigure the pending two-dimensional visual (digital) icons, the science teams at the respective space agencies made publicly available three-dimensional physical models, computer simulations, cartoons on postcards, and interactive digital media that have engaged various overlapping communities. The nine years of WMAP data comprising the iconic images were immediately archived online for scientific and public use, and the iconic "Evolution of the Universe" visualization has sparked productive questioning throughout the physics community and beyond. Most recently, the new observational techniques of Line Intensity Mapping (LIM) seek to produce three-dimensional maps of the large-scale structure of the universe across its history. Throughout, tensions exist between the epistemic and the ontic: as precision measurements have narrowed the uncertainty in our understanding of cosmic evolution, the nature of the basic constituents of our universe remains under contention.