The University Lecture theatres are CLOSED. This is an online Zoom meeting
Our Speaker for February 2022 is
Professor Erminia Calabrese
Her talk is entitled
“The Atacama Desert’s view of the microwave sky”.
The use of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) to study the physics of the Universe is one of the greatest success stories of modern cosmology. Over the last two decades, the astonishing agreement between the theory and increasingly-precise observations of CMB temperature and polarization has led to the establishment of a concordance cosmological model.
However, despite having constrained the parameters of this model to sub-percent precision, many fundamental questions about the Universe are still unanswered and we still need to find out how the Universe began, what is the nature of dark matter and dark energy, what are the properties of neutrino particles and the time of cosmic dawn.
To answer these questions new, more powerful CMB data are being collected, analysed and planned for. The Atacama desert in Chile is a prime location for these observations, the Atacama Cosmology Telescope is one of the leading experiments currently operating and will be superseded by the new Simons Observatory from 2023.
1st Thursday of the month
“The Atacama Desert’s view of the microwave sky”.
The use of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) to study the physics of the Universe is one of the greatest success stories of modern cosmology. Over the last two decades, the astonishing agreement between the theory and increasingly-precise observations of CMB temperature and polarization has led to the establishment of a concordance cosmological model.
However, despite having constrained the parameters of this model to sub-percent precision, many fundamental questions about the Universe are still unanswered and we still need to find out how the Universe began, what is the nature of dark matter and dark energy, what are the properties of neutrino particles and the time of cosmic dawn.
To answer these questions new, more powerful CMB data are being collected, analysed and planned for. The Atacama desert in Chile is a prime location for these observations, the Atacama Cosmology Telescope is one of the leading experiments currently operating and will be superseded by the new Simons Observatory from 2023.
The meeting will start at 7:30pm 3rd February 2022. A zoom link will be sent to Members beforehand.
We support, along with the Federation of Astronomical Societiesthe Dark Skies Matter initiative.Dark Skies Matter seeks to reduce the prevalence and harmful effects of unnecessary, artificial light and to protect fragile oases of natural darkness wherever they are still to be found. ( https://www.darkskiesmatter.org.uk/ )  |
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If you have questions about astronomy, choosing and using telescopes and other equipment, John Evans may be able to help here –
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| John Axtell has a forty minute, once a month, programme on Brooklands Radio. Details of which and a link to John’s podcast can be seen on our | Matt’s Books of the Month
(click the image)
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