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Halpern, Mark

The universe is filled with a thermal glow called the cosmic microwave background that comes from the hot plasma which filled it early on. Measurements of this background made by the NASA satellite WMAP have determined the age, geometry and composition of the universe with new precision, determining that the universe today is dominated by a dark energy that is causing it to expand ever more rapidly. The mission has also determined that baryonic matter--the atoms and molecules we see around us--only form a few percent of the total energy density of the universe today, and has determined the epoch at which the first stars formed. Recent results give a tantalizing picture of the first very small fraction of a second in the "big bang". Six years after its launch WMAP remains healthy and the data continue to pour in. This talk will explain to a general audience what this experiment tells us about how the universe began and what it is made out of.

podcast; Science and Engineering Library; WMAP; Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe; cosmic microwave background; dark matter; baryons; inflation; CMB; red shift

Text; Moving Image; Sound

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0085977

Science, Faculty of; Physics and Astronomy, Department of

Faculty

DSpace