The new images of the microwave sky: a concordance cosmology?

The existence and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the large scale distribution of Galaxies, the expansion of the Universe and the abundance of light elements can be all be explained with a single cosmological model. In this paper we focus on the CMB anisotropy maps produced by the BOOMERanG experiment and on their impact on cosmology. The images axe consistent with the result of acoustic oscillations of the photons-matter plasma in the pre-recombination Universe (z greater than or similar to 1000). We show how the instrument and the observations have been optimized and how the basic parameters of the model are derived from the data. These observations of the CMB are gaussian and point to a low curvature Universe (Omega similar to 1), as expected in the inflation scenario. In order to fit these observations and other cosmological evidence, the composition of the Universe must have significant contributions from dark matter (Omega(m) similar to 0.3) and dark energy (Omega(Lambda) similar to 0.7)