Speaker: Professor Hinshaw is the Data Analysis Leader for NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and serves as director of the Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis (LAMBDA) which releases Cosmic Microwave Background data to the scientific community. He is the recipient of Goddard's Space Science Achievement Award for his work on WMAP.

Title: Taking the Measure of the Universe

Abstract:

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation is the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang. This fossil relic has survived largely intact and it provides us with a unique probe of conditions in the early universe, long before any stars or galaxies had formed. I will describe what we have learned from painstaking measurements of the CMB, primarily from NASA's WMAP mission, including: evidence for the Big Bang itself; new measurements of the age, shape, and content of the universe; and new evidence that all structure in the universe emerged from microscopic quantum fluctuations generated during a period of cosmic inflation. I will conclude with a look ahead to new cosmological measurements in the works.