Observing the cosmos from above the clouds with Cynthia Chiang
Channel: Science and Cocktails Johannesburg
Date: 04/05/2016

Science & Cocktails Johannesburg
April 26, 2016
Speaker: Cynthia Chiang

 How did the universe begin? Can we observe the infant universe? How do we build telescopes to make those observations? Why is Antarctica a great place to study the cosmos?

And how does it feel to see an instrument, which took a decade to build, dangling precariously from a rope and suddenly accelerating into the stratosphere?

Cosmology, the study of the origins and evolution of the universe, is an exciting area of research that addresses some of humanity's oldest questions. How did the universe begin? What is it made of? What is its ultimate fate? To answer these questions, scientists travel to some of the most remote corners of the earth in order to build specialised telescopes that have access to the clearest skies.

In this episode of Science & Cocktails Johannesburg, Cynthia Chiang focuses on one of these specialised telescopes, named SPIDER, which aims to study the earliest moments of the universe's birth by measuring the leftover heat from the Big Bang. SPIDER is a balloon-borne telescope which launched on January 1, 2015 from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, and successfully observed from the stratosphere for 16 days.

Cynthia Chiang describes how the SPIDER instrument was built, the unique adventures and challenges of Antarctic long-duration ballooning, and give us a sneak preview of what we've learned from the SPIDER observations so far.
 
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