cmb

  • First Results From The BICEP2 CMB Telescope Announced re: Gravitational Waves in the Cosmic Microwave Background

    First Results From The BICEP2 CMB Telescope Announced re: Gravitational Waves in the Cosmic Microwave Background

    A little over a year ago, I had the extraordinary opportunity to work with scientists John Kovac, Jon Kaufman, Howard Hui, and others at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica (summary of my experience living and working at the south pole) on the BICEP2 and KECK Array Microwave Telescopes. Learning about how the telescopes worked,…

  • Getting To The Heart Of The Keck Array Microwave Telescope: Cryostat Disassembly

    Getting To The Heart Of The Keck Array Microwave Telescope: Cryostat Disassembly

    This week, I was fortunate to be given unprecedented access to the Keck Array Microwave Telescope in the MAPO Observatory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station by the Keck Array Science Team, in order to witness the disassembly of two of the five cryostats that form the telscope array. Photos. The Keck array is a…

  • Refilling the Liquid Helium of Bicep2

    Refilling the Liquid Helium of Bicep2

    A week or two ago, Physicist Jon Kaufman gave me a brief tour of the Bicep2 Microwave Telescope, operating here at the South Pole. Aa I reported earlier, the telescope operates at a very very low temperature – only a few millikelvin above absolute zero. In this particular telescope, to get down to that temperature,…

  • Touring the Bicep2 Microwave Telescope with Physicist Jonathan Kaufman

    Touring the Bicep2 Microwave Telescope with Physicist Jonathan Kaufman

    South Pole is home to many, many world-class science experiments, laboratories, and telescopes. One such telescope is the Bicep2 Microwave Telescope. On the ice this year working on the hardware and software is Physicist Jonathan Kaufman. Yesterday, Jon was nice enough to give me a quick tour of the telescope and lab, as well as…