1. WMAP http://www.stsci.edu/institute/center/information/streaming/archive/STScIScienceColloquiaFall2003/ The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Universe is 13.7 billion years old, with a margin of error of close to 1%. First stars ignited 200 million years after the Big Bang. Light in WMAP picture is from 379,000 years after the Big Bang. Content of the Universe: 4% Atoms, 23% Cold Dark Matter, 73% Dark Energy. The data places new constraints on the Dark Energy. It seems more like a "cosmological constant" than a negative-pressure energy field called "quintessence". But quintessence is not ruled out. Fast moving neutrinos do not play any major role in the evolution of structure in the universe. They would have prevented the early clumping of gas in the universe, delaying the emergence of the first stars, in conflict with the new WMAP data. Expansion rate (Hubble constant) value: H o = 71 (km/sec)/Mpc (with a margin of error of about 5%) New evidence for Inflation (in polarized signal) For the theory that fits our data, the Universe will expand forever. (The nature of the dark energy is still a mystery. If it changes with time, or if other unknown and unexpected things happen in the universe, this conclusion could change.)

2. *CMBR Tests of the Big Bang theory: The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_ig/030651/030651.wmv http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_ig/030651/030651.wmv

3. Decorrelated real-space galaxy-galaxy power spectrum using the modeling method (bottom) for the baseline galaxy sample assuming = 0.5 and r = 1. As discussed in the text, uncertainty in and r contribute to an overall calibration uncertainty of order 4%, which is not included in these error bars. To remove scale-dependent bias caused by luminosity-dependent clustering, the measurements have been divided by the square of the curve in the top panel, which shows the bias relative to L * galaxies. This means that the points in the bottom panel can be interpreted as the power spectrum of L * galaxies. The solid curve (bottom) is the best-fit linear CDM model of § 5 Tegmark et al. 2004 ApJ 607 L.

4. New Details on the Oldest Light in the Universe THE baby picture. The microwave light captured in this picture is from 379,000 years after the Big Bang, over 13 billion years ago: the equivalent of taking a picture of an 80- year-old person on the day of their birth.80- year-old person The First Stars Were Earlier than Expected The First Stars Were Earlier than Expected The Universe's first steps. 1: temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) in the oldest light in the universe, as seen today by WMAP. Temperature fluctuations correspond to slight clumping of material in the infant Universe, which ultimately led to the vast structures of galaxies we see today. 2: matter condensing as gravity pulls matter from regions of lower density to regions of higher density. 3: the era of the first stars, 200 million years after the Big Bang. Gas has condensed and heated up to temperatures high enough to initiate nuclear fusion, the engine of the stars. 4: more stars turning on. Galaxies form along those filaments first seen in frame two, a web of structure. 5: the modern era, billions upon billions of stars and galaxies... all from the seeds planted in the infant Universe. timeline

5. The Age of the Universe with a New Accuracy The Age of the Universe with a New Accuracy WMAP data tell us the age of our universe with a margin of error of close to 1%... And the answer is: 13.7 Billion Years Old! Open, Closed, Flat? The results are in! The matter of which we are made is only a small portion of the Universe, 4%. 23% is an exotic type of material known as "cold dark matter". And 73% is an even more exotic "dark energy". One possibility for the dark energy was introduced by Albert Einstein, a so called "cosmological constant." The geometry of the Universe is flat. This means the geometry you learned in high school applies over the largest distances in the universe. Old & flat

6. What is This Map? Ripples of heat in the sky: If we make a temperature map of the Earth for the month of June 1992 we get a pattern of data that can be displayed in a colorful way to help us understand the results. If we turn our gaze upward and make a picture of the whole sky, we can display that data in a similar oval format for easy examination. The map The temperature map of the Earth is a picture of data from the Earth's surface. The image captured by WMAP is from when the temperature of the universe became low enough for atoms to form, allowing light to travel great distances (to us). --analogous to the surface of the clouds we see on an overcast day. Light travels through the clouds, but we only see the detail on the cloud's surface.

7. The movie http://www.stsci.edu/institute/center/information/streaming/archive/STScIScienceC olloquiaFall2003/ http://www.stsci.edu/institute/center/information/streaming/archive/STScIScienceC olloquiaFall2003/