Greg Tucker is part of the research team that is behind the instrument design and building of a satellite that will and analysis of the data it will provide to scientists eager for measurements that will measure the light that remains from the Big Bang
A Brown astrophysicist will be part of NASA’s next satellite mission — this one to measure the oldest light in the universe, a remnant of the Big Bang from 10 billion to 20 billion years ago.
Greg Tucker (left), assistant professor of physics, is part of the research team that is behind the instrument design and building of the satellite, and analysis of the data it will provide to scientists eager for measurements that will reveal more about the formation of the universe.
"I like to know how the universe works, and to actually be able to measure something about it is pretty incredible," said Tucker. "You’re really looking at the universe as it was 300,000 years after the Big Bang."
The $145-million Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite will provide improved measurements of the temperature differences (anisotropy) in the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of radiation left over from the Big Bang. The tiny temperature variations in the radiation can offer insight into the origin, evolution and content of the universe.
The measurements, which should be better than those first achieved by a satellite in 1992, may give scientists more confidence in the theory of inflation, which proposes a period of rapid expansion of the universe shortly after the Big Bang. Inflation Theory makes a prediction as to what the radiation will look like. The satellite data should give cosmologists the statistics they hope will verify their predictions.
"This satellite will measure many of those parameters with accuracy. That’s the promise of it," said Tucker.
The satellite (left), about the size of a sport utility vehicle, is scheduled for launch June 30 from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Tucker will be at the research center at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. MAP will be in orbit for two years.
Tucker’s NASA experience has provided a research opportunity for an undergraduate. James Battat ’01 is working on an aspect of data analysis. He is doing his senior thesis on the extraction of information from the large map of the sky that the satellite will produce. After graduation, Battat plans to go to study astronomy in graduate school at Harvard.
Tucker first became interested in the origin of the universe in his undergraduate days at MIT, when cosmologists there were taking early measurements.
The physicist was invited four years ago to join NASA’s science team by people with whom he had worked. The science team includes researchers from Princeton, University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Chicago, the University of British Columbia, and Goddard Space Flight Center.
More information about the MAP satellite is available online at map.gsfc.nasa.gov