A Presentation for General Audiences

Here we present an overview for educators and general audiences of the Planck Mission: its scientific objectives, instrumentation and orbit, understanding the power spectrum of the CMB, understanding what we can learn from measuring the polarization of the CMB, and the unanswered questions in cosmology that we hope Planck can help us answer. Each of the links below will open a pdf file. You will need the Adobe pdf Reader.

For questions, or to obtain a copy of the entire presentation as one power point slide show for use with classes, please contact Dr. Jatila van der Veen at "jatila at physics.ucsb.edu" ...thanks.



Planck: Looking Back towards the Dawn of Time


A Presentation for General Audiences in 6 sections

Introduction ... 3 pages
Overview of Scientific Objectives ... 8 pages
Instrumentaion and Orbital Parameters ... 10 pages
Understanding the CMB ... 29 pages
Unsolved Mysteries! ... 6 pages
Polarization of the CMB ... 10 pages
References ... 1 page