This now includes seeing some of it visually as "snow" on televisions. Yet with the new transition to digital tv coming next year (in the U.S. at least), I wonder if "snow" will be a thing of the past?

Additionally, in the 1960's Bell Labs also funded further research that yielded another accidental discovery. Two astronomers working with a powerful yet precise microwave receiver could not eliminate the last bit of noise, no matter what they tried. They even thought it might be pigeon poop, so they climbed in and cleaned it thoroughly...to no avail. Several astronomers had predicted that if the big bang theory was correct, there should be a residual "glow" throughout the universe. They had unknowingly discovered the supporting evidence.