March astronomy lecture to talk about Big Bang
Phil Mauskopf, professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, will talk about the Big Bang as part of ASU’s Astronomy Public Lecture Series.
The lecture titled “Echoes of the Big Bang: Images of the Primordial Universe and the Cosmic Microwave Background,” will be held at 7:30 p.m., March 22, in the Marston Exploration Theatre.
On March 21, 2013 (one day before this lecture) NASA and the European Space Agency will release the first set of images of the entire sky as it appears at close-to-millimeter wavelengths of light taken by the PLANCK satellite. These maps will show us what the universe looked like billions of years ago before there were any stars or galaxies, as well as provide images of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation.
After its accidental discovery in 1965, physicists quickly identified the CMB as a key piece of evidence supporting the theory that the universe began with a hot Big Bang. Many experiments including the PLANCK satellite, launched in 2009, have already provided measurements that tell us a great deal about the origin and characteristics of our universe, mounting evidence for the existence of otherwise unknown substances such as dark matter and dark energy and precisely determining many fundamental parameters of the universe.
After the lecture, explore the new interactive displays in Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV (ISTB 4), which is located at the corner of McAllister and Terrace on the Tempe campus. Students will be around to answer questions about astronomy and the exhibits.
The ASU Astronomy Public Lecture Series, created by the astronomy graduate students, in conjunction with the ASU Astronomy Club occurs once a month. The next Earth & Space Astronomy Open House will be held from 8 to 10 p.m., March 29.
For more information, visit: http://astopenhouse.com/2012/01/astronomy-public-lecture-series/.
The School of Earth and Space Exploration is an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.