Who discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation?

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The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation was discovered accidentally in 1965 by American physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson while they were working at Bell Laboratories.12

While conducting experiments with a sensitive radio receiver, the two scientists detected a uniform, isotropic radio noise that they could not explain. Upon consulting with Bernard Burke of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was determined that they had likely observed the residual thermal radiation predicted by Robert H. Dicke, P.J.E. Peebles, and their colleagues at Princeton University.2

The discovery provided critical evidence for the big-bang model of the universe's origin. Penzias and Wilson were subsequently awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for their findings.1